


West of Jotunheim

by Schaudwen



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Intersex Jotunn (Marvel), Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Lokicest, M/M, Myth AU, Non Platonic Bed Sharing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, ikol - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-09-18 13:33:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16995960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schaudwen/pseuds/Schaudwen
Summary: When Odin has dire premonitions about a looming darkness, he turns to the sorcerer Loki to find a solution.Loki only asks for one thing... to take Asgard's Prince away with him to his palace of ice on Jotunheim.Thor quickly makes friends with the denizens there, but there is so much that Thor does not understand about his father's old friend, and about his own legacy...(Loosely inspired by East of the Sun, West of the Moon)





	1. Ravens Land

As they had stood on the Bifrost platform, Thor recalled how his father had looked over his winter gear with a single calculating eye. Though Thor had dressed himself in several layers of his best and warmest winter gear, his father’s gaze had lingered, weighing its suitability before finally nodding his assent.

Now Thor understood why his father had hesitated. It had barely been enough.

The cold seeped into every seam, and the wind greedily stole away his heat, leaving him shivering as the chill burned in his lungs and settled deep in his bones. He pulled his fur cloak more snugly about his face, even as his breath froze into his hair before catching on the wind.

This was _Jotunheim_.

Even in the weak light of the Jotun sun, the dagger sharp peaks of the ridge they climbed cast long shadows on the blanket of clouds that misted the valleys below with fresh snow. The ridge was sharp and narrow, but snow had not banked too high in their path up the mountain. The path was rocky, but solid—likely why the Bifrost had landed them there.

Some distance behind them, the ridgeline had been beaten round and flat, and it was in this clearing that they had landed. Even without the runes of travel that scored the ground in the Bifrost’s wake, Thor would have recognized the rudiments of an old Bifrost landing platform. Though it had fallen into disuse, the land still bore the signs of a bifrost platform once used regularly. Flattened and battered by powerful cosmic forces, a regularly traveled Bifrost would pummel the land into its own distinctive shape. The results of such regular travel often lingered on the landscape for untold ages.

That such a Bifrost platform existed in such a remote place surprised Thor. Even after the war, in the strained peace between Jotunheim and Asgard, the Aesir had never been much welcome in Jotunheim, and only a few places must exist that had once borne the marks of repeated use over the ages, as this landing site did. And something about this path made Thor feel that even to the Jotnar, this mountain was a far and remote place within their realm.

And yet, it was here that Asgard’s King and Prince must venture. On a realm hostile to their people, and on mountain which threatened to be harsher still, hoping that the being who dwelled there could be trusted to honor his oaths and help them in their time of need.

*

It had started with the Odinsleep.

The Odinsleep was a time of rejuvenation and healing in Asgard, a time of renewal and celebration for the realm. Their had been times in the distant past, when their king had not dared enter the Odinsleep for fear of what should befall the realm as their protector slept. Then, the Odinsleep had been a time of worry and uncertainty, wondering when their king would return— and if their enemies would dare to strike the realm eternal during such a vulnerable time.

But that was in the past, when the realms had clashed more hotly and openly. It had been many ages since Odin had feared what would come should he lay his head down to rest. Asgard was secure, and as such, their people solemnly celebrated the renewal of the Odinsleep, nearly forgetting the uncertainty that had once come with it.

As countless times before, Odin had given himself to the rejuvenating rest, and Frigga had prepared to take his throne for the three days and three nights that her king and husband would be wandering the ephemeral realms of _Yggdrasil_ , dream, and prophecy.

On the final night, Odin’s dreams had grown fitful. He sweated, and gasped, and muttered, as a mortal does when consumed by a deadly fever. His wife and son had remained at his bedside, fretful and worried, for they had never seen his rejuvenating rest so disturbed.

When the light of dawn banished the night of the final day, Odin’s eyes had opened. Though his brow was still beaded with sweat, his fever dream had broken. He had called to Frigga to aid him to his feet. Without exchanging a word, she had summoned the servants before she herself had made her husband ready to depart.

Thor had tried to ask his mother what had happened and where she had been taking his father, but she had only begged him to hold his questions until they had returned.

_The king had need to consult in prophecy, and his questions were such that only a volva should hear._

They had departed for Frigga’s hall, _Fensalir_ within the hour. Though Thor sent them queries, his pages were turned away. None were to disturb them until they returned to Asgard’s royal hall.

Unsettled, Thor had nonetheless stepped into his new role, presiding over those duties that still remained to be done for Asgard’s Court, even during the Odinsleep. Thor had rankled at those who treated him as if he were a child prancing around in his father’s borrowed robes and not a young man in his majority, as he presided over the court. But he’d rankled further still to those who fawned and flattered him, as if he were king already. He had dealt with both types in the court as he had seen his father do, and considered it good practice.

When it came time to preside over the mead hall, Thor had found that he was grateful to his friends for their _support_ in his time of need. Before finding their own seats, they had met him at the high table, offering him a toast. Fandral had pressed his own cup into Thor’s hands as Volstagg filled it to brimming, before Sif and Hogun drawn their compatriots back down to the warrior’s table. His cup of course was not filled with the watered drink that his mother preferred he be served at the high table, but with mead from one of the finer casked tapped for their feast.

The sharp edges of the day were pleasantly numbed by the time his friends had finished their toasts and his cup had been drained.

 

Odin and Frigga had returned to Asgard’s Hall the next day, but it was Frigga who once again presided over the court rather than the All-Father. Odin had departed from Asgard in the predawn, traveling by Bifrost to places neither she nor the gatekeeper would _or could_ tell him of. When Thor had pressed for the answers that Frigga had promised after their return from _Fensalir_ , she had only tell him that they had gone to her hall to consult her loom.

As a master weaver, there were many looms in Frigga’s hall. Most were not unlike any that could be found in any other home or hall. Except for one.

The loom which Frigga used to consult the warp and weft of Yggdrasil and Time.

When Thor pressed for more, she would only confess that there would be nothing more that she knew until the All-Father returned. Thor had let it go, recalling his mother explanation that patterns did not always resolve themselves immediately in the weaving, even as the threads were worked into place. Just because something had been woven, did not mean the pattern was visible yet.

Though resigned to waiting, Thor had not resolved to wait patiently. It was for this reason that he found himself lingering on the rainbow bridge in the predawn light of the following morning. The sun had just peeked over the disk’s edge of Asgard’s horizon when Thor heard the dome begin to crackle and whirl until it had attained its furious spin. With a growl of thunder, it's beam of light shot out and returned, retrieving its traveler from whatever far-flung realm they had come from.

When Odin stepped from the stilled dome and onto the hard light of the rainbow bridge, Thor had been the only one besides Heimdall to see the snowflakes that still clung to the All-Father’s beard and cloak before they melted away on Asgard’s warm, gentle wind.

*

Odin abruptly stopped before him, and Thor had to catch himself mid stride, narrowly avoiding bowling into his father’s broad back. Thor watched as Odin shielded his eye with a gloved hand, looking up at the sky before them. Mirroring his father’s movement Thor did the same, following his father’s gaze.

Odin looked towards the peak of their mountain as it stretched high above them. Its peak was long and spindly, as if the blue ice of its top had been pulled into a long spire to crown it as the highest of all of Jotunheim’s cold and frozen mountains.

A large raptor of some sort rode the gusts of thin wind that skirled the snow from the peak there. It sailed lazily down the mountains on broad, black wings.

Not a hawk, nor even an eagle—as the creature grew closer, it resolved itself into something more massive and more terrifying. Larger than any bird that Thor had seen outside of a warrior’s tall tale. Each wing was like a massive longboat sail, beating cold air in the Aesir’s faces as the creature hovered over them.

Thor dashed in front of his father, somehow drawing the sword at his side despite the thick fur-lined gloves encumbering his grip. He stood his ground between them as the snow flurried about them both.  

The wings beat once, twice, and when the large ball of feathers towards the center of the great beast—a shape that no man could have mistaken for a bird—lightly touched the ground, the wings suddenly stopped, mid-flap. They fell softly around the tall lump in the center, the rest of the creature sinking to the ground like a flat, feathery blanket that had been flung out by some invisible hand to spread over the bed of snow around it.

Thor watched as the tall feather-downed shape in the middle moved towards them, shifting in a smooth gait and dragging the hem of the shining black pinions through the layer of snow in its wake. As it approached, a pale and long-fingered hand, bared in the cold air but for some cloth of a long cuff, emerged from between the downy folds towards the middle of the feather-beast.

Thor felt Odin’s restraining hand on his shoulder, bidding his son to sheathe his sword. The pale hand reached up and pulled back the feathered edge of the hood that its fingers found there, revealing a thin, delicate, male face nestled within the ruff of soft feathers from the man’s ensorceled cloak.

“Well met, Loki,” Odin called out as he stepped past Thor and towards the stranger, as if greeting a kinsman on the road.

The stranger matched Odin with a cool and level gaze. He paused at Odin’s greeting, before finally folding himself onto one knee in a low bow.

“All-Father,” the stranger said, in such deep obsequience that Thor wondered if this ‘Loki’ sought to mock them. Loki remained upon his knee, but then looked to where Thor stood behind his father. A faint smile curled at the edges of Loki’s lips as he inclined his head in Thor’s direction. “And the Odinson.” Thor swallowed and returned the nod after a moment of hesitation.

“Yes,” Odin turned to Thor. “I suppose introductions must be made.” His father’s hand fell to grip Thor’s thickly layered shoulder in introduction, but Thor could still feel Odin reassuring him as he guided his son forward.

Loki remained bowed before them as Thor was drawn closer. Thor looked down to take the stranger's features in, and it was clear that the stranger did the same through the veil of his dark eyelashes.

The man who bowed before them was older than Thor, but even beneath his cape, one could see that his build was slight and willowy. The dark color of his raven-black hair blended almost seamlessly with the glossy feathers that were gathered around the high collar of the stranger’s neck. Thor could neither guess the man’s age, nor the realm he hailed from. No creases of age traced his face, nor did any scars seem to mark him. His features, though not unlike an Aesir, were not akin to any Thor had seen amongst the citizens of any of the nine realms.

His skin was not white like snow, but pale as old bones, bearing no resemblance to those native sons calved from Jotunheim’s glaciers. His face was all angles and sharp lines, not unlike the features of the Jotnar, though he was _short_ for the giants of Jotunheim, with a stature not unlike an Aesir. And Thor had never seen a jotun with such soft skin and waving hair either.

Thor tried to match his features to the people of other realms he knew, and while there may have been some fae resemblance to the Alfor, and his hair was not unlike the Vanir, ultimately the sorcerer seemed to appear _not-quite-Aesir_. If anything, the pale, hollow-cheeked stranger bore more resemblance to a death’s-head skull than to any of the inhabitants of the nine realms in particular.

Thor saw nothing in this man that he recognized as familiar... except his eyes. His eyes felt aged beyond Thor’s understanding, and calculating in ways that Thor knew he would never fathom. The stranger’s gaze bore into him in a way that felt painfully familiar.

Thor had felt that same sensation of assessment and calculation from Odin, when in his role as All-Father and holding the balance of realms with a word or action. It was a look that made Thor feel a deep dread in his gut when an such unflinching calculation was turned on himself. He could not help the feeling that something about Odin’s silent judgment had all too often found him lacking in some way that Thor could never understand.

But even this was merely familiar, and not truly the same sensation.

Odin’s eyes had never felt as cold as this stranger’s green eyed gaze did. Thor felt a shiver that had nothing to do with the wind and snow.

“Thor, my son and heir, I wish you to meet an old companion and friend of mine,” Odin said, as he formally presented the stranger. “Loki, _once of Jotunheim_.”

The shadow of a smile that had teased at Loki’s lips turned to a true, rueful smirk. Thor attempted to keep the puzzled look off his face at the contradictory title. ‘ _Once of Jotunheim_ ’ seemed an odd address as they stood upon the highest of Jotunheim’s peaks.

Odin signaled Loki to rise, and he continued his introduction unhalted. “In ages past, we once adventured together. In our wanderings, we swore oaths to each other. Oaths of kinship and aid, which I have come to call upon today.”

And then Thor heard the timbre of his father’s voice take on a new tone and clarity, as he spoke with the voice of the All-Father of one Realm, and a Guardian of Nine. The tone that he spoke when making solemn oaths that would bind blood and bond in great unity, or towards vengeful purpose. It was the tone he spoke when his word became reality, for when he spoke with this voice, it was as if the tone was imbued with the energy of Yggdrasil itself. It was not a tone Thor had heard often, except in the most solemn of occasions or need.

“Today, I have summoned the sorcerer Loki, and Thor of Asgard, to honor the oaths we pledged.

“Loki, you know of my need, and the need of the realms. You know I would not have invoked old oaths lightly. Will you aid me, as you once swore, Loki?”

The mirth that had softened Loki’s face had been erased with Odin’s formal invocation, leaving the sorcerer's features flat and coolly neutral. Loki’s answering voice was calculated in its formality.

“An oath was once shared between men who would be brothers. Once we vowed to forever protect each other as our own kin, uphold the honor of his brother, aid him in time of need, and revenge him should an enemy besmirch it. As an oathsworn kinsman, I swear to uphold this oath to my oath-brother, though it may bring my own destruction.”

Odin narrowed his eyes and seemed to push for something further from Loki. “Do you swear to use your all your magic and knowledge to aid us in obtaining the magics we seek?”

Loki smiled, as if to reassure Odin, and answered. “I will aid you. With all my magic and knowledge, I will find and craft what you seek. This I swear.” And then Loki’s attention pointedly turned to Thor. “I only ask for the aid you gave in turn, as you did when we traveled as oath-sworn kin.”

“I ask for a companion to aid me. When we adventured together, I had a strong Aesir whom I could trust to break bread with me, share battle with me, and avenge me should I fall. I ask that you provide this again, as you once did.”

Odin clasped Thor’s hand and held it out to Loki.

“Though my days of wandering and adventure are over, I have another, of my blood, who can fulfill the pledge in my stead.” With his grip still steady on Thor’s outstretched hand, Odin turned to address Thor.

“Thor. My son,” Odin paused a moment, as if the weight of these words had momentarily staggered his speech. “Do you swear to fulfill my oath of kinship to Loki? To break bread with him, share battle with him, and avenge him should he fall?”

Thor looked into the sorcerer’s face, and met those ageless, burning green eyes. With the intensity of a man giving his first true  _ warrior’s oath _ , an oath that would test his honor and bind him to it beyond even death, until the completion of their task released them, Thor answered with a surety that would order _mountains_ to move from his path.

“I swear!”

Odin watched his son’s oath with satisfaction, perhaps even with a hint of pride. He then took Loki’s hand and held it out towards Thor.

“And do you, Loki, swear as you once swore to me, to break bread with him, to protect him in battle, and to keep him safe from harm? Do you swear to never harm him by your own hand, lest you be forsworn and lose all rights to our brotherhood?”

Amusement seemed to touch the sorcerer’s eyes at the penalty Odin had affixed to their old allegiances, but he did not balk at the addition.

“I swear. Just as I would never harm you, I would never see harm befall your son. So shall I keep this oath, as you have kept yours. Let any who break such oaths be known forsworn, and revealed as a villain and a knave to whom none would offer succor.” Loki answered gravely, echoing what Thor recognized as an archaic form of oath.

Odin’s single eye bore into Loki, assessing, as if unsure of the bargain some dubious merchant had offered, but knowing that though he may mislike the deal, it was not one that he could afford to walk away from.

After a long moment, Odin drew their hands together within his own, apparently satisfied with the bargain— if grudgingly so. Even through his thick fur-lined mittens, Thor could feel the cold of Loki’s bare palm as the long fingers grasped his hand.

“The oath is made. The deal is struck,” Odin said. The formal speech of an All-Father-King relaxed, and he released their hands before turning to Loki.

“The terms have been met. I have provided you with that which we agreed upon. Thor shall accompany you until you have no more need of his sword arm in this quest,” Odin reminded Loki.  The mood shifted, and though Thor had not moved, Odin spoke as if only he and Loki remained, expounding on those agreements made before Thor had ever set foot on Jotunheim’s frozen mountainside.

“I have made arrangements with the Jotun court. Thor shall remain in Jotunheim under your wardship and, as such, shall be your responsibility as his warder. As for travel to other realms, it is known you were once a wanderer, and none shall find it amiss that the prince is traveling with my old companion as you explore the realms.”

Loki’s eyebrows raised. “The Frozen Throne is allowing the Aesir prince free reign of their lands, and they expect _me_ to play the responsible guardian? I’m hardly complaining at the boon, but however did you manage to pull _that_ allowance from Laufey’s fist?”

Thor kept silent, surprised at this shift to a familiar and almost friendly tone. It made him wonder if it had been the war that had driven them apart, but there had been centuries upon centuries since the formal peace had been settled between Jotunheim and Asgard. If war had driven them apart, the current peace seemed like it should be no deterrent. Given the evidence of the Bifrost platform, there had once been a time for regular travel from between Asgard and this far-flung corner of Jotunheim...

Perhaps Loki was a recluse, and that is why he had never visited Asgard that Thor could recall? Or perhaps there were other reasons that Loki had not warranted a mention in his father’s old tales?

He would not be the only companion that Odin had not spoken of from his wandering. Long ago, his father told Thor of an adventure during his wantering, and had mentioned a traveling companion, a god named Hoenir. But when Thor had asked more about the man, Odin had become very sad and would speak of him no more.

So what had happened between the his father and his companions so long ago?

Thor watched as Odin actually smiled slyly back at Loki, laugh lines crinkling deeply around his eyes as he answered the sorcerer.

“I heard tell that it was Bestla who pried that allowance from his hand, one broken finger at a time.”

Loki regarded this, seemingly impressed.

“Even the throne of ice cannot stand between Bestla and this _Odin-son_ ,” Loki noted. “I suppose it is only natural. Ze’s not left Jotunheim since before the war, has ze?”

The mirth slipped some from Odin’s face and he nodded guardedly as he agreed, slipping into the familiar Jotnar speak for those neither male nor female. “Not a foot. Ze was not best pleased to hear that I would be leaving Thor in your company. But ze did not allow anyone else to stop me. Glaciers have moved with less relenting force.”

“And…” Odin trailed off, as if embarrassed. “I must ask you to go to zir. Ze will want to see zir kin, Loki. Do not leave it off too long… as I certainly have.”

“I would not dream of keeping zir from zir kin.” Loki soothed Odin, his voice honey sweet in a way that made Odin narrow his eye at Loki.

 _Bestla_ . This was a name that Thor _had_ heard before, but not in ages. Not since he was very young. The name reminded him of the chill of frozen winter apples, though he could not remember why...

“I must speak to Thor before I depart,” Odin said after a pause, nodding a dismissal to Loki. The sorcerer took it and walked some distance away, giving them privacy.

Blocking Loki with his broad back, Odin bade Thor to remove his gloves. Reluctantly, Thor did as his father bade. The cold quickly ate at the warmth of his exposed fingers. Odin removed his own gloves and examined each hand carefully.

Odin turned each hand palm up, scrutinizing them under his single eye. As Odin’s gaze focused on each hand, Thor thought he could just make out faint reflection of the seidr-cast runes his parents had laid there upon him before the journey.

Frigga had been mistrustful of Odin’s arrangements with the sorcerer. And even had she trusted Loki fully, she knew there would be other dangers ahead, where a warrior would be grateful for the blessings of powerful seidr.

Before they had set to depart, Frigga had conferred with others powerful in the practice of seidr and runecraft. The talismans Thor invisibly bore were the results. Runes of protection were bound to one hand, imbued with his mother’s providence. Odin’s own mark was borne on the other, carrying some of his father’s power.

“When you enter Loki’s tower, Heimdall will be unable to see you. Loki has powerful seidr all his own, and has always chosen to blot his hall from Heimdall’s vision. He will keep his oaths; however, he can sow... mischief, at times. Should you find yourself in true danger, these runes will protect you.

Odin raised one palm. “If you are in mortal danger, your mother’s rune of protection shall seek to intercede and turn the tide in your favor.” Odin then raised the other palm, “And should you need it, this rune shall lend you a little of my power.”

A cold edge entered Odin’s voice. “However, if it is Loki who threatens you... these runes will protect you doubly. If Loki should forswear himself, he has forfeited his honor and his oath to me, and these runes will trap him and bind him so he cannot escape and cause further mischief. He knows we have placed you under our protection, but should he attempt to harm you regardless, you _must_ not kill him, but you must neither let him escape.” Odin gripped both of Thor’s hands tightly with a sudden intensity.

And Thor did his best to match his father’s seriousness. Looking to where Loki stood in the distance, he steeled himself. “I’ll do what must be done, Father.”

Odin relaxed his grip, and smiled fondly at his son, satisfied. They both replaced their gloves before Odin took his son in one last powerful embrace. Thor was only a little embarrassed that his father kissed his forelock fondly before releasing the hug.

Thor stood where Odin left him, watching as his father walked the distance back to the Bifrost landing site. He did not stop watching until the light of the Bifrost had punched through the Jotun sky and carried his father away, leaving only a flurry of snow and steam in its wake.


	2. Don't Name What Can't Be Taken Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor is taken to the sorcerer Loki's keep, tries valiantly to make a friend, and discovers the truth behind all those who live within Loki's castle.

When Thor turned to walk back to where Loki awaited him, he saw that the sorcerer had sat down upon a boulder of broken ice, chin perched in his palm and looking at Thor as if studying him.

And Loki’s scrutiny did not waver, even as Thor approached, boldly assessing him. Thor was not unfamiliar with the sensation of being scrutinized when he traveled in his father’s train as a royal prince of Asgard, but... it was not often that Thor received the impression that perhaps the person’s assessment had found Thor’s qualities  _ wanting. _

Thor stopped before Loki, and met his gaze, challenging him. Loki merely matched it with a sly smile and straightened himself up.

Without acknowledging Thor, the sorcerer pulled open the hem of his feather cloak as if opening a curtain, revealing a glimpse of the tailored clothing that he wore in layers of dark cloth. “Shall we make our way to the Keep now?” Loki asked, as if directing the question to silk beneath the dark feathers of Loki’s cloak.

Thor was puzzling the sorcerer’s words when suddenly a pale face peeked out from the shadows of Loki’s cloak. Thor was stunned, unable to comprehend how the slight silhouette of Loki’s cloak could have ever hidden another person.

A dark haired youth stepped out from under Loki’s arm, and Thor’s thoughts ground to catch up. Though the youth was slight and wore barely any layers of clothing at all, Thor could not fathom how Loki could have hid him within his coat during their entire meeting. Nor had the boy arrived from higher up the mountain trail, as there were no signs of footfalls in the pristine snow. Thor resigned himself to the obvious explanation. 

Loki was a sorcerer, and to conjure a person from one place to another was powerful seidr... But so was flying on an eagle’s wings. 

Still, he had never seen his father or mother perform such feats of magic. And perhaps that stood to explain why his parents, though fearful of what could befall Thor on his journey, were willing to ask him to pledge himself to Loki’s service. They needed Loki to carry out seidr that only Loki could achieve.

Looking around curiously, the youth’s gaze finally settled on Thor. He boldly planted himself before Thor and grinned widely. His eyes were bright, and the same green as Lokis. In fact, the boy bore a striking familiarity to the sorcerer, as if he were some close kin of some sort; a son or nephew. He appeared approximately Thor’s age, but where Thor was well muscled and built for battle, this youth was lean and gangly... And dressed far too lightly for any Aesir to so nonchalantly venture outside in the harsh cold of Jotunheim.

But his smile was incredibly winning, and Thor could not help but awkwardly smile back. He offered his arm, in a comradely greeting. Perhaps this was one of Loki’s kin? And if he were to be living alongside Loki and his kinsmen, it would do well to show proper courtesy.

“Well met, I am Thor Odinson.” The boy looked at his arm and cocked his head as Thor waited for the boy’s reply. 

He was still holding out his offered hand when Loki interrupted them both.

“Bring him promptly to the castle. No mischief. I expect him clean and tidy for dinner— not lost in some ice cave, or being gnawed on by wolves,” he warned the boy gravely as he began to walk away a pace.

Thor mistrusted the twinkle this chiding brought to his new companion’s eye. As if on cue, a wolf yipped in the distance, echoing off the snowy bluffs.

Loki drew up his hood and when his hand disappeared within the folds, he was again completely obscured in the length of his dark cloak. As he flung out the trailing length of feathers, a gust of freezing wind caught it, and pulled him with a couple great flapping beats into the sky. 

Thor watched in awe as again the feathered cloak resolved itself into the shape of a giant raptor, riding the wind higher and higher towards the spire atop the mountain.

When Thor finally tore his eyes away, he turned to his companion only to find himself standing there alone on the path. The boy had already left him behind and begun their long trek by foot up narrow pass to the mountain’s peak. 

Thor hurried to catch up.

*

Thor had thought that when he’d landed on Jotunheim’s mountain, he had experienced the coldest that he could ever feel.

He had been wrong.

Trekking up Jotunheim’s steep mountain, he found that it was possible for the air to be colder, the ice more chilling, and the wind more persistent at entering any seam. They dared not stop for rest, not only because Thor was unsure if he could rise again, but also because he could still hear the wolves. He could not see them, but their yelps and howls chased them up the mountain as they made their slow progress.

Repeatedly Thor tried to strike up conversation with his companion, but no matter what Thor asked or said, the boy remained stubbornly mute. The only response Thor’s efforts wrung from him was a sharp laugh when Thor finally resorted to delivering breathless jokes as they continued to climb. His companion seemed to like the one about the goat and the Vanir sailor, but when Thor attempted to press his advantage with another, his efforts were again ignored—except for some derisive yips from their furry followers. Thor finally gave up after turning to word games earned him a glare from his silent companion. Recalling Loki’s chastisement against leaving him to be gnawed on by wolves, Thor decided it would be better not to tempt his guide to leave him to his fate over some bad puns.

Ages later, when they finally reached the keep on Jotunheim’s highest peak, Thor could not help but feel his heart sink when the walls resolved themselves from the clinging mists of the mountaintop clouds. 

_ Ice. It was all made of ice.  _

From the walls of the keep to the sharp towers that pierced the sky like daggers, the entirety of Loki’s castle was made of blue ice frosted by layers of snow. 

‘ _ Loki, once of Jotunheim’ _ his father had called the sorcerer. Well, he certainly  _ lived  _ like the Jotnar did. Thor was only left to wonder if during his entire stay on Jotunheim, he would ever feel warmth again. It was a glum proposal to contemplate, as Thor stared at the frozen walls and tried to imagine it as his home for his foreseeable future.

There were no servants in the courtyard to greet them when they arrived, and it was not a footman, but Thor’s companion who pushed open the frozen doors of the great portico to allow them entry into Loki’s hall.

As Thor mounted the steps to the entrance, a gust of  _ warmth _ caressed his face. Reserves he had not known he had left in him propelled him inside, and as the doors closed behind them, Thor let out a ‘ _ Ha _ !’ of relief.

Inside Loki’s keep of ice it was as warm as any meadhall on Asgard. In the middle of the great hall a fire even roared in a large hearth, the light flickering and glinting through the clear ice that built the hearthstones around it. Thor hurried to its welcoming warmth, and leaned in close. 

He removed his gloves and held his stiff fingers to the licking flames gratefully while still marveling at the unmelting ice that made up the hearth. After the cold has seeped from his bones, he dared to trace a finger along its smooth surface, and wondered at how it felt no colder, nor warmer, than the polished marble decorating any of Asgard’s fireplaces. It was a marvel that such a place existed. And it was clearly the work of Loki.

Thor’s companion waited for him, seemingly indifferent to the heat or any need to warm himself after their long, cold trek. Though the boy became increasingly impatient, Thor was loath to leave just as he had begun to let the heat sink through his layers of clothing. When he had lingered by the fire long enough for the snowflakes that had collected in his coat and furs to begin to melt and drip from him, the boy had finally had enough.

“I did not know Aesir were made of ice!” he said as he gestured at the meltwater dripping from his cloak. “While this is a revelation, perhaps it is time to leave the fire while you’ve only melted a little bit. And before you’ve completely ruined the carpet,” the boy sighed dramatically.

 

Thor head spun towards his companion, surprised to finally hear him speak, but he did not move from his spot before the fire, hunching a little suspiciously as if the youth had played him some trick.

“So you  _ do  _ speak,” Thor said petulantly. “At least on behalf of carpets.”

He stewed over the boy’s earlier dismissal of Thor’s introduction, and that he  _ still  _ did not know what to call his companion. He bit out, “now that you’ve found your tongue, have you found something for me to call you yet?” 

The boy merely shrugged dismissively, and walked away from Thor. He offered Thor no answer or explanation for his silence, and merely turned to wait for him at the entrance to a stairwell at the other end of the receiving hall. 

Thor sighed and reluctantly left the fire. It wouldn’t do to antagonize this boy too much, and at least he had learned one thing about him. 

The boy  _ could  _ speak. Just for whatever reason, he did not care to speak to  _ Thor.  _ Thor told himself he did not feel a little hurt by this, but to have a companion treat him so dismissively was not an experience he was very familiar with. And Thor  _ still  _ didn’t know the boy’s name.

As Thor’s companion led him down the spiraling stairway, Thor noticed the smooth walls’ transition from being shaped from the ice to being carved from polished dark stone. Braziers lit by smokeless witchlight followed their passage down the stairs and through a corridor. They finally paused before another set of large doors in the stone. The boy opened the doors, and Thor immediately forgave his companion for bringing him away from the fire and to this new place.

Within the room was a large communal bathing area with steaming, milky water, like that of a hot spring. Thor entered the misty room after his guide. Smoky patterns of grey and white and orange tinged the polished obsidian surface of the walls and floors in striking natural patterns that Thor had never seen the like of in Asgard. In the center, carved into stone floor, was a large basin big enough to fit twenty men and steaming with water that seemed swirl with some unseen current.

Thor began stripping out of his layers of cold weather clothing eagerly. In the heat of Loki’s hall, the inner layers of Thor’s underclothes had actually begun to become a little damp with sweat, and he was eager to wash it off and change to a lighter style of clothing more suited to the hall’s warm temperature. Thor placed his clothing in a haphazard pile, next to where his companion placed his neatly folded garments. Reluctantly, Thor also left his weapons, sword, axe, and knives, laying them with care beside the clothing. He was not without protection even disarmed, he reminded himself.

Thor strode towards the basin, and collected water in a bucket. Tipping it over his naked chest and down his back, he sloughed the sweat from his body before testing the waters of the bath. He gratefully lowered himself into the welcome warmth of the hot water. Feeling beneath the surface he found that there was a broad stone step that provided a comfortable seat to sit and relax upon. Thor sighed indulgently as the last ache of gnawing cold that had sunk into his bones was finally chased from his body, and then lay back against the lip of the basin and closed his eyes.

Until a bucket of warm water was suddenly, and unceremoniously, dumped over his head.

Thor protested and sputtered in surprise, blowing water and trying to clear damp hair from where it clung to his face and covered his eyes. Thor felt someone lay hands on his shoulders, and instinctively, he reached up to grab his assailant and flip them over his shoulders. There was a yelp of surprise as they landed in the water with a large splash.

The water churned as legs kicked out under the surface. Finally clearing his eyes, Thor recognized the crown of dark hair within the frothing water, and with a final sputter of frustration, Thor helped pull the boy to his feet. The boy glared at Thor and rewarded his efforts by flinging a wet washcloth in his face before plunging back below the water to retrieve something else. 

Thor was torn between umbrage at the prank and sheepishness at his over-reaction. He debated apologizing for flipping the boy into the water, but it hardly seemed fair to him! It had been an accident, to be sure, but the boy had certainly invited it on himself with his mischief! Thor was still trying to rein his temper into a more _ diplomatic  _ response when the boy emerged again. He moved determinedly towards Thor while triumphantly brandishing the soap he had recovered from below. 

“Have I harmed you?” Thor asked. He could not completely keep the annoyance from his tone, but the boy did not seem to notice as he snatched back the washcloth and began to work it into a froth on the soap. 

“I did not intend to—Ah!” Thor’s offended apology was interrupted by his assailant grabbing his arm roughly and beginning to soapily scrub his shoulder and chest. Thor tried to gently extricate himself, until the boy suddenly scrubbed vigorously in Thor’s armpit, causing him to yelp and forcefully jerk his arm away in surprise and an attack of ticklishness.

“Stop!” Thor protested, as the boy made another grab. Thor held up a warding hand and they stood at an impasse. “I do not need your help. I’m perfectly capable of washing myself!” Thor commanded, with only a little whine of protest in his voice. He snatched the cloth back from the boy. 

They eyed each other over the steaming water. The boy watched as Thor picked up where he had left off, as if he did not believe Thor’s assertions about the suitability of his hygiene regimen. 

The boy humphed, but did eventually leave Thor to his own devices before retrieving a washcloth and soap for himself. Thor watched the boy warily as he continued to wash himself. He was not used to being so combative and on guard while merely washing himself in the friendly confines of a communal bath!

After scrubbing himself thoroughly enough to make his skin sting a little, Thor sat back on the submerged ledge and began to carefully pull at the leather hair-thong that bound his braids and wound through his hair. He had not had a chance to pull them out before he had been unceremoniously dunked with a bucketful of water, and now that they were wet, loosing his braids would be a more tedious task to smooth out by himself.

Thor’s attention, though momentarily distracted by this tangle, shot back to his bathing companion as he heard the water ripple with the boy’s approach. Thor restrained himself as the boy moved behind Thor. When Thor began to turn, the boy raised his hands pam out, letting Thor see them before he gently but firmly pushed Thor’s back towards him. Still on edge, Thor relented with a sigh, letting the boy take the knotted braid from his fingers. He may as well let the boy try to disentangle the mess he had caused in the first place. 

After the leather had been unwound and the braid had been loosened, Thor felt the tips of the boy’s fingers comb through his hair and draw along his naked back. He gently combed out the wet length of Thor’s hair, working slowly up from the bottom and disentangling it snarl by snarl. 

By the time his companion had finished running his fingers through his hair and moved onto massaging sweet-smelling soap into his scalp, Thor found himself completely relaxed and had nearly forgiven his trickster-guide for every moment of silent mischief. The boy didn’t even take the opportunity to roughly dunk him below the surface to wash out the soap—instead he gently tipped Thor’s head back, letting his golden hair fan out in the water between them as the boy ran smoothing hands through its length until it felt free of any soapy slickness.

When Thor sat upright again, he tried to find a way to express his gratitude. He searched for something to use instead of a name, and settled uncomfortably on only saying, “thank you... my friend.”

Again the boy’s only response was to shrug silently before turning and dunking his own head under the water in order to continue his own, more hurried, ablutions.

“We are going to be living together for some time,” Thor groused at his friend’s back. “You don’t intend to go entire seasons without telling me your name  _ sometime _ , do you?” but the boy only carried on scrubbing at his hair.

“Perhaps I will call you ‘ _ svartrhar,’ _ eh, Mr.  _ Blackhair _ ?” Thor goaded playfully.

_ That _ earned him a response. His friend sharply slicked back his wet hair and turned to glare at him. “With a threat like that I’d better find a name soon,” the boy replied acidly before pulling himself from the pool to begin drying himself. “If I left my naming to you, I’d be afraid you might find something  _ cleverer _ to name me than ‘ _ blackhair.’”  _

Thor scrambled to follow him out. He quickly poured a bucket of colder water over himself to finish off in the Aesir fashion, before picking up a towel from the same alcove his friend had taken his from. 

“What’s wrong with ‘ _ svartrhar’ _ ?” Thor asked, a little defensively.

The boy snorted. “It is good you are a warrior, my prince, for you have yet to have a skald’s mastery of words.  _ Svartrhar _ ? It had all the poetry of a child naming a puppy. A  _ black _ puppy,” the boy complained in a tone of mock injury.  

The travel-stained clothes that they had left had been whisked away by some unnoticed servant, Thor realized, including his weapons. They began to dress in the new clothing that was been left in their stead. Thor tried not to feel naked at the prospect of dressing without his sword and axe, and examined the new clothing. It was in a style unfamiliar to Thor and he looked to his friend to see how he donned his similar items. The occupation of dressing themselves did not stem his friend’s jibes, even as he helped Thor lace the closures of the unfamiliar tunic.

“Just imagine if you really put your mind to it,” the boy said as he wiggled his remaining bare foot. “You might name me Mr.  _ Ten-toes _ ! Or Sir ‘ _ All-my-teeth! _ ’ Or Mr. ‘ _ Blackbeard _ ’!”

Despite his agitation, Thor could not help but grin in the face of his friend’s torrent of teasing. He joined in, mock-interjecting in his own defense. “But you haven’t got a black beard!” Thor teased as he rubbed at his equally beardless face.

The boy smiled licentiously. “Not on my face I don’t,” he purred back, making Thor laugh and slap his friend on the back as they left the baths and made their way back down the corridor.

As they left the baths, Thor continued to try to egg his friend into another outburst of talk. If Thor had been disappointed at the boy’s lack of easy friendliness earlier, he was twice as happy to have finally found a camaraderie between them, even if it did come a little at his own expense. 

Although Thor was unable to wheedle another word from the boy’s smirking lips, he did find that he did not particularly mind his friend’s silence, as long as he earned a smile on occasion.

*

By the time his friend had led them to the dining hall, the table had already been set and the sorcerer Loki awaited them, lounging at its head and lazily sipping from a goblet that had already been served him.

The dining hall’s long table had benches that could easily accommodate more than a score of men, but except for their presence, the hall was empty. The place felt quiet and cold to Thor’s ears, and not just because it was in a castle made of ice. The castle itself was quite comfortable in  _ those _ regards, but Thor had been used to golden mead halls filled with noise and song! Filled with warriors and skalds giving great speeches and boasts, and full of much, much merrymaking. 

Here there was only the single table within a cavernous echoing hall. Thor was led to the table where Loki sat at its head.  He was directed to sit to Loki’s right, as Thor’s friend sat at his left. The scraping of benches across the floor as they sat was torturous to Thor. Not even the tapestries that lined the wall could keep the sound from ricocheting off the high ceiling.

A straight-backed, lean older man with grey-streaked dark hair emerged from behind one of the tapestries and began to serve Loki from the platters upon the table. By the time both Thor and his companion had been served, Thor had begun to squirm in the silence. No wonder his friend had grown so accustomed to not speaking—it hardly seemed that he had anyone to speak  _ to  _ in this place!

Loki finally took pity on his guest and broke the silence first, addressing Thor directly.

“I hope the you have found yourself comfortable here. It has been so long since an Aesir has come to my hall,” Loki stated, more than asked.

“Yes,” Thor answered eagerly. “Your hall has been warm and welcoming, as I could not have imagined an Aesir to feel upon Jotunheim. I thank you for sharing your hearth, your food, your drink with a humble stranger,” Thor said, formally thanking Loki for the guest-rights he had offered Thor in his hall. He raised his cup to drink a toast, and a young page emerged from somewhere behind Thor to fill his cup.

Thor turned to thank the page, and was struck by his familiarity. He bore the same raven black hair that both Loki and his friend did. Even though he was much younger than either Loki or the other boy, he shared a similar lean build and gangliness. Thor watched him carefully as he filled the other glasses. The page even shared the same bright green eye color between them.

“Yes, I have always been known for my hospitality.” Loki drawled laconically as he took a generous sip of his refilled wine cup. Thor took his own taste of the drink. It was not a wine he was familiar with; sweet, but dark with a hint of bitterness. And not watered down. He supposed he could happily grow used to this.

Looking over the brim of his cup, Thor began to scrutinize the older servant as well, noting that he also shared his host’s pale features, even if his face was more heavily lined, and his neat hair was streaked with gray.

Thor could not fathom why more of Loki’s kin did not sit there with them? There was plenty of room at the table for more to join them, and Thor wanted Loki to know that there was no shame in having his kinsmen join them. If Loki had no servants and only his family to work within the hall, Thor would think no less of him.

“It gladdens me to see you surrounded by so many kinsmen, but I wonder why more do not break bread with us? Are they too shy to sit with an Aesir prince? I assure you, I would welcome their presence!” Thor tried to reassure his host.

Loki nearly choked on his wine. When he had collected himself again, his smile had turned positively vulpine. “My dear prince, it seems you are under a misapprehension, “ he said after clearing his throat. “You and I are the only living creatures within this entire castle.”

Thor sat flummoxed, looking at his new friend in confusion.

As if comforting a distraught child, Loki gently explained, “I thought you might prefer a companion during your time here, someone to guide you in this new and strange place. So I made one for the purpose. Every thing you see in my castle has been made for a purpose.”

“A companion?” Thor repeated, not removing his eyes from his friend. “Y-You...you mean you  _ conjured _ him?” Thor asked with incredulous horror. 

“I’ve conjured everything in this castle. The hall, the ice, the food. They have all been created by my whim, for my whim.” Loki said matter of factly. 

The sorcerer leaned over towards Thor’s friend and fondly brushed a damp forelock back behind the youth’s ear, like a sculptor adding a final polish before deciding if he was done or not. The boy did not shift from where he sat, continuing to look at Thor.

“I prefer a solitary life, and so,” Loki said as he leaned back, seeming satisfied, “I make servants of myself to see to my needs. Creating a companion to aid you was no different.”

“While I am busy with seidrcraft there will be times where I will be in seclusion and unable to offer you company or assistance in this realm. This ‘ _ doppelganger _ ’ shall serve you in my stead.

“This castle will not always appear as it does now. As my need or whim changes, the castle does too, at times, and this creature will serve as a guide,” Loki explained, as if outlining the practical necessity of he had done. “You will have free rein of my hall as long as he is there to ensure you do not become lost. He will open any door you ask; any item or need, he will see to it. You need only to ask.”

Thor sat stunned. He could not believe that his friend was merely some _ construct _ . He had teased Thor and made jokes. He had been mischievous and kind. He had  _ laughed. _ Surely that still made him a person and not just a doppelganger?

Thor swallowed. “Does he have a name?” was all he finally asked. 

Loki’s brows rose in surprise.

“He’s been quite insistent,” Thor’s doppelganger companion explained to his master, finally speaking.

“Has he now?” Loki purred, turning towards his copy and resting his chin on his hands and leaning in, as if conferring with the youth.

Thor bit his tongue, wondering if the doppelganger would tell Loki about their tussle in the baths. Surely Loki would know everything his copy knew? Or perhaps not... not if Loki didn’t already know about his teasing the copy for its namelessness.

“And what are your thoughts on the matter?” Loki asked his copy. The boy seemed to mull it over and looked at Thor.

“I suppose I must have a name. He does not seem clever enough to know what to do with more than one Loki.”

They both smiled, as if at their own joke. Thor felt somewhere between uncomfortably left out, and wishing he were truly not there.

Loki sighed. 

“Very well. Have you thought of a name?” The boy shook his head. “Then if you need name to make you not-Loki, you shall be known by the name  _ Ikol _ .” Loki turned to Thor and asked, “Is that to your liking?”

Thor did not know what to say at first, but when he looked at his friend, he could see the boy turning over the name in his mind as if pleased. 

Well, he had been the one who had asked for a name, he just had not expected that it  _ needed to be gifted on the spot _ .

He nodded approval to Loki. 

_ Ikol _ . It would do, though did his friend really think that was that much cleverer than  _ Svartrhar?  _ Thor did not dare ask, and they ate the rest of their meal in a chastised and digestive silence.

He suspected the answer was a definite _ yes _ .


	3. A Person at the Door, A Thing on the Floor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anything Ikol wants, Thor would happily give...

After dinner, Ikol dutifully led Thor to the rooms where he would be quartered.

Thor was pleased to see that the weapons and clothing that had been removed from the baths had been returned to him. The clothing was clean and dry and neatly folded, and even the weapons had been polished and their leather oiled. Thor moved about the room finding places to stow his meager belongings.

Ikol lingered as Thor explored the room, as if he only waited for Thor to snap his fingers to summon him into action. Thor couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt at this. It probably _was_ what Ikol waited for. Loki had created him for that purpose, it seemed.

But there was nothing here that needed any snapped fingers to give him what he desired. His things were away, and in the connecting bedchamber Thor saw a large comfortable bed piled with blankets and furs. A fire already snapped pleasantly in a fireplace made of ice, and some bedclothes were laid out nearby. Thor looked at it longingly.

Eager to go to bed, he bid Ikol good night, and shut the door on his bedchambers. He donned the nightshirt and prepared for sleep, tucking himself into the feather-soft bed.

...

And yet, sleep would not come. Thor flipped restlessly.

He tried to calm his mind, but too much had happened this day. He had journeyed to another realm, taken the most important and binding of oaths he had ever uttered, seen magics he had never imagined... and when he had thought he had made a friend, Loki had laughed and told him that everything that surrounded him here was a lie made for his own convenience.

Thor was not mindless, and after the events of this day, his mind _raced._

The witching hour came and went, and the logs of the magical fire banked themselves down to embers, dimming the room to what should have been a comfortable twilight.

Sleep eluded him, and Thor rose from his bed and walked to the door. He had seen a desk—perhaps he could pen a missive to reassure his mother...

As he passed through his door in the darkness, Thor’s feet caught and stumbled on something cold and hard. His yelp of surprise was joined by another startled voice. Thor went down in a tangle of kicking limbs.

He righted himself and turned to see what he had tripped over. The pale shape resolved itself in the dim light. “Ikol? What are you doing outside my door?” Thor demanded in exasperation. “Shouldn’t you be in your own bed?”

Ikol shook his head. Thor sighed, “You don’t have to watch over me in the night. Let me take you to your rooms.” When Ikol shook his head again, Thor’s eyes narrowed in a new suspicion.

Thor did not bother asking more questions he knew he would get no answer to. Instead he went to the door and tested it. The door opened without any resistance and Thor slipped into the corridor with Ikol following close behind him, rubbing his sleepy face.

Thor tried another door, but this one was locked to Thor. He stood aside and had Ikol open it. It opened to Ikol’s hand as if nothing had barred him, not needing to even produce a key. Ikol let Thor inside to explore within. The room held an assortment of looms, but nothing that even resembled a bed. Thor left the room and tried another.

_And another._

There were rooms of books and candles, rooms with chests of gold, and rooms that only had golden straw. There was a room that even had fish within boxes made of the ice so transparent that they appeared like glass. Thor could not imagine what use Loki had of all these rooms or how he could possibly keep them straight.

There were rooms for everything, except for people. Not a single room held a bed, or could have been called servant or guest quarters, aside from the room and the bed that Loki had _specially_ provided for Thor.

Thor sighed in exasperation.

Loki had no need for servants. Not servants that needed beds, anyway. Everything Loki needed he merely conjured with his magic.

And apparently, anything that Loki conjured did not usually need beds. Loki may have made Ikol for Thor’s own convenience, but it appeared he had not thought much of Ikol’s needs as Thor’s companion beyond that. Taking the only solution left to him, Thor brought Ikol back to his quarters and ushered him into the bedroom.

Thor urged Ikol into his bed and under the covers, scooting him to one side before joining him. The bed had plenty of room to accommodate more than one person, especially one as slight as Ikol.

Thor lay on his side of the bed, facing the door and trying to ignore that another person was sharing his bed. But it was not easy to ignore the cold that seemed to radiate from Ikol, even beneath the layers of blankets. The blankets on Thor’s side of the bed eventually grew warm, but there remained a faint chill that licked uncomfortably at his back.

After a while, Thor felt Ikol roll over and scoot closer to him. He spasmed and almost shrieked as a frigid hand touched the nightshirt on his back. Thor quickly rolled over and grabbed Ikol’s hand to shove it off him.

Even in the dim light Thor could see the complaint in Ikol’s eyes.

_I’m cold._

Thor hissed in exasperation. Ikol had never complained of the cold when they had trudged halfway up a frozen mountain in snow to their waists! But as Thor held Ikol’s hand in his own grip, he could feel it finally begin to warm.

Thor let out a long and tired sigh. Loki had made Ikol to take care of anything he should need while he was in this place; he would not be here if not for Thor. If Ikol was a man in his service, that would make Thor responsible for him and his needs in turn. And Ikol _was_ in his service... after a fashion.

Thor took both of Ikol’s hands in his own, and began to warm them, rubbing and blowing his heat into them. Ikol happily nestled closer to Thor. He even went so far as to nuzzle his head in the crook of Thor’s neck under his chin. Thor tolerantly allowed it and held Ikol closer as he rubbed his hands over the thin nightshift of the boy’s chilly back. He still bit back a curse when Ikol’s frigid feet tangled in his own, but it was with much less acrimony as Ikol began to noticeably warm in his arms.

And so did Thor. Or at least parts of him. His cheeks began to flush as one of the only parts of him that _had_ been sleeping began to stir. Thor tried to disentangle himself from the now warmer Ikol, but Ikol only snuggled himself in more tightly. Ikol’s breath blew across the bare skin of Thor’s exposed collarbone, and with a miserable resignation, Thor realized that he had consigned himself to a very uncomfortable night.

As he shifted his thigh to cover the embarrassing evidence of his discomfort, he at least tried to remind himself that his night had hardly been restful _before_ he had stumbled over Ikol and brought him to his bed.

Thor turned to mental exercises in order to distract himself, or at least not make his condition worse. It was very easy to imagine standing beneath a freezing cold waterfall after spending a day on Jotunheim. Easier than forcing his mind to recall the succession of Niðivellir’s kings since the time of Terok the Rusty.

Either way, it proved an ineffective distraction, as it meant that Thor’s thoughts were determined to be elsewhere when Ikol’s warm hands slipped underneath Thor’s nightshirt. Thor’s mind snapped back to itself in time to catch Ikol’s wrist as his hand dipped downward, but not in time to erase the _stimulating_ feeling of his deft fingers tracing along the line of muscle on Thor’s hip.

Thor pulled back, and again Thor caught Ikol’s eyes. The expression on his face left Thor’s mouth dry.

“No,” Thor whispered in a hoarse voice. He swallowed. _How to say this_ ? “You don’t have to do this. I know he made you for me... but you don’t have to do _this_ too, Ikol.”

Ikol smiled that licentious smile again, as if he knew he had already won a game that Thor had not even realized they’d been playing. Without loosing himself from Thor’s grip, he shifted his body closer once again and leaned in towards Thor’s ear. He answered in a breathy whisper;

“I know.”

Ikol then nuzzled his nose into Thor’s neck, licking Thor’s thudding pulse there. He rubbed his body into Thor’s in a long wave, letting Thor feel Ikol’s cock digging into his thigh in an unmistakable hardness that mirrored his own. Thor loosed a shuddering gasp of breath he had not realized he had been holding in. It was unambiguous what Ikol wanted from him, and as Thor released Ikol’s hand, he knew that anything Ikol wanted, Thor would happily give.

Ikol continued ringing Thor’s neck in nuzzling kisses as he rubbed his lean body against Thor’s, and Thor felt his resolve crumble piece by piece as he pulled Ikol deeper in his arms. By the time the last rubble of his resolve had fallen, Ikol had made his way to Thor’s lips, where he waited patiently for him. His mouth hovered over Thor’s, ghosting them with his breath.

One large hand shifted from where Thor had drawn Ikol’s body in close and slid up the line of his spine until it had curled to cup the back of Ikol’s neck. Ikol purred appreciatively as Thor’s thumb rubbed the spot just behind his ear.  

Driven to the limits of restraint, Thor pulled Ikol into a rough kiss. Ikol’s lips parted warmly and easily for Thor as he forced his way in. He kissed Ikol with a heady urgency, and Ikol nipped and sucked at Thor’s lips in return, leaving them both panting for breath with each parting of their lips. Thor then began to move down, kissing and nibbling at Ikol’s neck in return. Ikol smiled wickedly before shimmying his nightshirt up so as to better tangle his bared legs with Thor’s  beneath the blankets.

Moving his hands under Thor’s own nightshirt again, Ikol let his fingers wander appreciatively up Thor’s bared thigh until they had made it to the muscles of Thor’s finely toned ass. Ikol pulled their bodies close, and with a rock of his hips, he ground himself into Thor. Their hard cocks rubbed against each other, caught in the friction between their bodies and bedclothes and Thor groaned loudly against Ikol’s neck. Thor could feel Ikol’s chest shake with silent laughter.

Not to be outdone, Thor’s hands were suddenly around Ikol, one arm spanning his bared waist, the other hitching Ikol’s thigh over his own before giving an answering grind of his hips. Ikol was too busy moaning to laugh after that.

Clamping his leg more securely around Thor’s thigh, Ikol took Thor’s hand and gave it a wet, dripping lick before guiding it between their rocking bodies. At Ikol’s urging, Thor took both their cocks in one large wet fist. Together they fucked into their joined hands, the wet precome adding to the slick between their fingers as they rubbed hotly against each other’s cocks. The friction was sweet enough to make Thor think that perhaps this hadn’t been a complete mistake...

Thor laid a hand along Ikol’s face, and pushed the sweaty hair out his eyes, urging Ikol to look up at him, as their fists still pumped between their bodies. He didn’t see any regrets or mistakes in Ikol’s eyes either. He saw only Ikol.

Perhaps if Thor thought of Ikol as a _thing_ he would have felt more regret. When Loki said he had made Ikol for Thor, surely he hadn’t intended _this._

But he couldn’t think of Ikol as just a _thing_ Loki had made. Ikol was a person and a friend to Thor, and Ikol had _wanted_ this with him. Surely that wasn’t wrong?

Thor saw Ikol come closer to the edge, fucking more desperately into Thor’s hand as he chased that last bit of friction. Thor obliged him, and fucked them both faster, his own orgasm chasing Ikol’s. He could feel Ikol’s entire body shudder as he came dryly in Thor’s fist, and followed after, pulling Ikol bone-creakingly close as he painted them both in stripes of his semen.

When they had caught their breath, Thor shrugged off the sweaty, come-stained mess of his nightshirt. Using one of the cleaner corners he wiped up the sticky come that had smeared between their stomachs and splotched the sheets between them. Too tired to do anything other than toss the offending shirt into a corner on the floor, Thor rolled back into bed, exhausted.

Clinging to Ikol, he fell into an untroubled sleep.

*

When Thor awoke, Ikol was still with him, cleaved to his side. Thor could still smell the scent of sweat and sex that had stained their bed and still clung to them both. But even in the light of morning he had no regrets. Ikol seemed content with the bargain as well, drawing his fingers along the length of Thor’s body, following the curve and join of Thor’s muscles. He practically purred with contentment as he explored Thor’s body as he had not been given a chance to do the night before.

Thor combed fingers through Ikol’s sleep-rumpled mess of black hair before settling his grip on Ikol’s neck fondly. Thor studied his friend’s face as they regarded each other in the light of a new day.

He truly was some sort of doppelganger of Loki. Thor could clearly see it now. His lips were thin and red like Loki’s, but he smiled easily at Thor; if mostly at Thor’s own expense. His cheekbones were high and pronounced, but the softer roundness of his face made them appear less sharp and less gaunt than Loki’s severe face. And though Ikol was pale, he blushed such a pretty pink all the way to his ears when Thor gave his skinny ass a squeeze. It made him appear much more alive than the bone paleness of his primogenitor.

Ikol may have been Loki’s copy, but Thor did not imagine that frigid Loki could have ever copied the warmth and mischievous light in Ikol’s green eyes.

The hand on the back of Ikol’s neck grew coaxing and Ikol let Thor draw him into a gentle kiss. It was sweet and indulgent—until it was not. Ikol bit at Thor’s lips, and invited Thor to ravish his mouth. Thor was happy to oblige, and as the night before, when their lips parted, they were panting heavily.

Thor urged Ikol to sit up, and tugged at his friend’s nightshirt. Ikol was happy to oblige, and he pushed Thor back and straddled his muscular naked hips before tugging the shirt up and over his head. Thor could not believe how the nightshirt had managed to survive the night without being stripped from the Ikol’s body, but he was appreciative of the view once it was off as Ikol stretched languidly on top of him.

Ikol seemed to preen under Thor’s attention, and leaned himself slightly back to give Thor a flattering view as he offered himself to Thor’s exploring hands. Thor studied Ikol’s body happily, tracing the marks from last night that lingered on Ikol’s blush-tinged skin. His friend was skinny, but he was not soft. His muscles were light and lean, and he felt surprisingly strong under Thor’s hands. Thor could still feel the ribs along his friend’s sides, but perhaps he’d be able to encourage Ikol to fatten up a bit, Thor thought brightly.

Thor’s hands moved to Ikol’s hips and downward. His ass felt tight and small, but it was hardly a surprise on Ikol’s build. Fattening him up would definitely make _some_ things more comfortable, Thor mused. Admiring the handsome length of Ikol’s cock, Thor noted that in the light of day, this was another feature of his friend that seemed not to differ at all  from what Thor had seen of Aesir anatomy. He brought his hands forward, and ruffled his thumbs through the thatch of Ikol’s black pubic hair.

“Why if it isn’t Mr. Blackbeard!” Thor teased, earning himself a slap on the chest and a scowl from Ikol above him. Thor laughed and took the abuse good naturedly.

Ikol really wasn’t all that different from himself or his friends at home in Asgard, Thor thought.

_He’s got lips to kiss and a cock to fuck with, and everything else in between the north and the south, just like any other man._ Thor assumed that Loki had a similar build, and he could not help but wonder what Loki looked like beneath his own layers of robes, and how much it would resemble Ikol’s body. Or perhaps Ikol _was_ different from Loki? If Loki had made Ikol to be more like an Aesir—

Thor’s train of thought was sharply interrupted by Ikol giving him a rough tweak of the nipple, causing Thor to buck Ikol up, and nearly off, in surprise. Ikol had apparently become bored with Thor’s distraction, and was impatient as always to get on with things.

Shimmying down from where he straddled Thor’s waist, Ikol began to draw himself downward until he had nestled himself in between Thor’s parted legs.

Just as Thor had taken an opportunity to study Ikol, it seemed Ikol was intent on studying Thor. Smoothing Thor’s blond curly hair down, he cupped Thor’s cock and balls in his hands, feeling their weight and gently rolling Thor’s balls to feel their velvety texture between his fingers. Thor purred encouragingly at Ikol, enjoying his explorations. Thor’s cock had stirred to attention, and Ikol traced its girth and length with his fingers, following veins that stood out faintly along the shaft. When he finally gripped the base in a firm hand, Ikol drew the tip of Thor’s cock towards his mouth. Thor jumped as Ikol darted his tongue into the opening of the foreskin that still covered the sensitive head of Thor’s rousing cock.

Smiling up at Thor beneath his dark eyelashes, Ikol began to play with the loose skin more gingerly, teasing the opening with his tongue in gentle exploratory and probing licks. Thor was breathing in tight and controlled breaths, and before long his cock had come fully erect, pushing itself mostly past the sheath of his foreskin. Ikol’s breath over the exposed head was enough to make Thor’s fingers twist tightly into the furs of his bed.

Ikol gently pushed back the last bit of foreskin to fully expose him, and licking his lips, he kissed Thor’s cock before stretching his lips to slowly take the head into his mouth. The warmth and wetness there was wonderful, and the way that Ikol’s tongue laved over Thor’s cock made him gasp. Ikol slid the head from his mouth, running his tongue along the sensitive underside as he did so. He blew on it before, again, drawing the the bulbous head into his mouth and torturing Thor with the delicious warmth and softness of Ikol’s deft tongue.

Over and over again.

Ikol looked up at Thor’s expression of pleasure and pain, and squeezed the base of Thor’s cock with his long fingers. Popping his lips off again, Ikol smirked up at Thor as Thor groaned for more. In answer, Ikol started laving Thor’s length in long wet licks that made Thor squirm, finishing off each movement by twirling his tongue over Thor’s sensitive cockhead.

Ikol kept smiling as he prepared Thor like this until he seemed satisfied. Pausing over Thor’s length, he took a breath, and looked into Thor’s eyes. Thor watched as Ikol lowered his mouth over Thor’s cock...and kept going. Slowly, his lips moved down Thor’s saliva-slick length, stretching along its girth, until he had almost taken Thor down to his root. Thor could see Ikol’s eyes blink and water from the effort, but he could not tear his eyes away from the sight—until Ikol swallowed.  The wave of tightness as Ikol’s throat gripped his cock made Thor groan and throw his head back as if he’d been stabbed in something vital.

Slowly, Ikol drew himself up and off Thor’s length, taking a breath before fucking Thor with his mouth in earnest. Thor watched with fraying control as Ikol slid up and down his cock with hollowed cheeks that made his features seems sharper, as if haunting Thor with a shadow of his progenitor's face.

Thor’s hips jerked for more of their own volition, despite Ikol’s controlling grip on his flanks and Thor’s own trembling resolve. But Ikol seemed to like Thor’s reaction best when he took Thor to the root and swallowed his cock, savoring the tortured edge of shuddering restraint that entered Thor’s voice as he fought desperately not to simply fist his fingers in Ikol’s hair and fuck his face until Thor had come down his teasing throat.

Panting and trembling from his own exertion, Ikol pulled himself off of Thor’s cock, giving it one last long lick before he crawled up Thor’s chest again, pulling Thor into a sloppy-wet kiss. Thor groaned at the loss of Ikol’s lips on his length, but Ikol swallowed it up, leaving a hint of salty taste on the tongue he slipped into Thor’s mouth. Thor’s cock, still dripping wetly from Ikol’s saliva, pressed into Ikol’s inner-thigh, and Thor whined into Ikol’s mouth for more.

Ikol seemed more than happy to oblige. He reached back and shifted his weight as he showed Thor what he wanted the most...

And Thor faltered. With a shock, he realized he had no oil to prepare Ikol with. In fact, he might even have to send Ikol _away_ to _find some_. He tensed at the thought.

“Ikol, is there any oil in these quarters that we can—” Ikol interrupted him with a silencing finger over his lips. He guided Thor’s hand to probe between his cheeks and to touch the furl of his asshole. Ikol felt wet and slick already, as if he had applied some fresh oil there while Thor was unawares. Ikol urged Thor’s fingers to probe deeper, and as they slipped in with little resistance Thor realized that Ikol had already slicked and stretched himself in preparation this morning.

Thor’s nostrils flared as he imagined Ikol lying in bed with him, parting his legs and working himself open with oiled fingers; stretching himself, _fucking himself_ open. All while Thor slept beside him unaware.

His hips bucked eagerly into Ikol at just the thought, making Ikol grin hungrily in anticipation of the fucking to come. He ground down on Thor’s fingers teasingly, a promise of what he had in mind for Thor if he would only _get on with it._ Thor withdrew them with one last teasing probe, and gripped Ikol’s taut hips.

With one hand on Thor’s chest, and the other guiding himself in, Ikol slowly lowered himself onto the thick length of Thor’s cock. With a little resistance, the head of Thor’s cock slid into the tight furl of Ikol’s asshole. Ikol’s face screwed in concentration, and his breathing came in long steadying breaths, but after this initial pause, he did not stop his slow progress down Thor’s length until he had sheathed himself completely on Thor’s cock, taking shuddering breaths at the exertion.

Thor struggled to remain transfixed there and waiting, despite Ikol’s tight and welcoming heat. He dared not attempt any movement until Ikol had accommodated his girth, since it was obvious that he needed to adjust to the stretch. So he stayed there, soothing Ikol’s trembling thighs until his shuddering breaths had subsided, and Ikol finally began to rock back and forth on his cock in a tentative rhythm.

Once he dared to move, Thor tried to match the pace that Ikol set, moving gently to meet Ikol as he began to ride Thor’s cock more vigorously. Thor was unsure of what Ikol could take at first, but once Ikol had fucked himself to a panting and dripping sweat, he made it clear that he wanted Thor to give him everything. He urged Thor to go further, with grasping and demanding fingers that squeezed and scratched at Thor’s shoulders as he continued to fuck himself hard and deep on Thor’s cock. _Faster! Harder! More!_

Thor pulled the wild Ikol close to his chest, and drew him into a rough kiss. When Ikol had subsided some in the cage of his arms, Thor looked at him challengingly and said, “Perhaps if you asked more nicely?”

Ikol’s eyes narrowed, but after a moment he batted them sweetly at Thor, before gently resuming their kiss. The sharp pain as Ikol bit his lip was enough to draw blood, and made Thor pull back back in surprise with a groan.

Growling through a bloodied lip, Thor drew the squirming Ikol even more tightly to his chest. Thor rolled on top of him as he flipped Ikol on his back, pinning Ikol there for a moment with his weight. Thor grabbed Ikol’s calf and shrugged it over his shoulder, pulling Ikol halfway off the bed and into the air as he did so. Thor grabbed Ikol’s hands and forced them both above Ikol’s head, gripping both fine-boned wrists in one large, strong-fingered grip. Ikol was undeterred, and from under a lascivious, half lidded gaze he smiled smugly up at Thor as he undulated his naked hips against him. Despite being pinned and bent almost in half, Ikol seemed supremely confident in his control of the situation.

With his other hand in a controlling grip on Ikol’s hips, Thor again pushed himself in, slowly breaching Ikol’s delicious tightness. Ikol squirmed with the feel of it, and by the time Thor had slowly bottomed out, Ikol was panting and pink all over. Thor pulled out, slow as his first thrust. He could feel Ikol’s flesh hold him tightly, as if unwilling to let him go. Thor kept pulling out, until he held Ikol’s hips out and steady, barely breaching him, and leaving Ikol empty and squirming for Thor’s cock again, _now._

Thor continued the slow and steady rhythm, causing Ikol to moan and toss his sweaty tangle of black hair back and forth in frustration. Slow and steady. Deep and shallow. Thor was trembling with the effort of controlling himself, but the plaintive moans coming from Ikol were all the motivation he needed to slowly keep going.

A sudden thrust, fast and deep, was enough for Thor to remind Ikol of what he wanted most. And any effort by Ikol to kick or pull himself onto Thor’s cock, to control the rhythm again, were thwarted by Thor’s pinning hands, holding his hips from bucking and pinning his arms in place. Thor would pause until Ikol subsided, before again resuming the slow and steady pace, mercilessly, even as Ikol wordlessly mewled for more.

Finally, in a hoarse and shaking voice, Thor spoke again.

“Ask for it.” He grinned down at Ikol through a curtain of his own sweat tousled hair, licking his lips before adding. “Nicely.”

Ikol swallowed under the heat of Thor’s smoulder. Thor’s watched Ikol’s tongue flick out to lick at his dry lips before panting his response. “Please, Thor. Please.”

Ikol's cracking voice shattering his friends mute silence had been all Thor had wished to hear. He released his grip on Ikol’s arms, and moved it above Ikol’s head to grip the edge of the dark bed frame.

When Thor thrust into Ikol again, the black ice hewn posts of the bed creaked heavily as he threw his weight into the movement. Thor’s movements had lost all the temperance of his shallow and teasing thrusts, instead fucking into Ikol with a new vigor.

And it was all the better for the wait. Thor’s study of Ikol during his endless teasing had also let him test which angles and spots had seemed to wring the most response out of Ikol’s body. Thor tilted his hips and sought to fuck Ikol where Ikol had reacted most intensely. The pitch of Ikol’s moans was like music to Thor, and it was becoming harder and harder to not lose himself to the pressure building low in his spine.

Thor urged Ikol’s hands down from above his head, guiding those long fingers around Ikol’s neglected cock. Ikol gratefully took it, and even as Thor began to lose his rhythm, Ikol attempted to match Thor’s furious pace with his pumping hand. Thor dropped Ikol’s legs from his shoulder to lay chest to chest, feeling the rhythm of Ikol’s hand trapped between them. Ikol’s legs immediately wrapped tightly around Thor’s bucking hips.

When Ikol came, it was with a hoarse, wordless cry, gasped into Thor’s ear. Thor kept fucking into Ikol, feeling his ass tighten around his cock, pumping him so deliciously that all control was lost to him. He heard himself panting Ikol’s name over and over again, as if it were a spell that might save him from some unknown danger ahead, even as his world exploded behind his eyes into a million shattering pieces.

...

Thor came to awareness, this time with the warm and tantalizing scents of freshly prepared food that set his stomach to growling. Thor looked up muzzily to see Ikol placing a tray that appeared to carry some sort of breakfast onto a nearby table. Thor noted the robe that Ikol had belted on himself appeared to be more Thor-like in their dimensions than anything that would have been cut to fit Ikol’s slender frame, but Thor was not going to complain that Ikol was wearing things Loki had apparently provided for him—he only felt inclined to complain that Ikol was dressed at all.

Ikol returned to sit at Thor’s side, and fondly ran his fingers through Thor’s sweat-tangled hair as Thor smiled up contentedly at him. Ikol took a grape from the tray across from them, and stuck it in Thor’s mouth before getting up and walking himself out the bedroom door.

Thor absently chewed it as he heard his friend depart his chambers, and shrugged. He rolled himself to a sitting position and pulled the tray towards him on the bed. The message seemed clear. _I will be away. Eat._

So Thor ate. He would have preferred that Ikol remain to share the breakfast with him, but he thought that perhaps if he saved some of the choicer morsels, then he might still be able to coax the skinny boy into eating some of them with him...

_*_

Loki paused, looking up from the crumbling scroll he studied as the copy—no, _Ikol_ —let himself in to await Loki’s pleasure.

Not rising from his desk, Loki re-rolled the scroll and set it carefully aside. He leaned back in his chair and contemplated the mirror-self before him.

_Ikol_ stood still and stiff under Loki’s dissection. Asgardian _warmth_ still bled off the copy-Loki; his breath still smoked from his nose and mouth as he stood in the Jotun chill of Loki’s own private wing.

There were parts of Loki’s castle that were to remain his alone, and he did not wish to share them with his new Aesir pet. If Thor were bold enough to go exploring this far, he would soon find that there were chill parts of this hall in which he would find no warm welcome, and should not trespass.  

But like Loki, Ikol was no Aesir, and would suffer no harm from standing in the killing cold of Loki’s study wearing nothing but sweat, bruises, and a light clinging robe.

Tilting his head almost imperceptibly, Loki acknowledged the copy, and Ikol began unbelting the robe. It slipped from his shoulders to spill at his feet.

Loki raked his eyes along the tousled, rumbled, sweaty mess of him, and smiled.

Finally rising, he approached the doppelganger, and stalked a tight circle around him as Ikol stood still as marble. Except when he smiled that foolish smile that Loki recognized all too well.

The copy even tilted his head at an artistic angle for him, as if to better show off the way that the rough kisses and bruises ringed his neck. He smelled of sweat and sex, and his body was a map of fingerprints and bruises that could not help but stand out against his pale skin. And he wore them proudly for Loki. For himself.

Loki stopped and stood behind the copy. Ikol would not have dared turn back to look.

“Show me.”

The copy stepped forward towards the desk. Spreading his legs a distance apart, Ikol placed his hands flat on the desk before him and bent to lay himself over its flat surface. He jauntily tilted a hip and waited, presenting everything for his master.

Loki stepped forward and with a hand, he spread Ikol’s cheeks open, humming approvingly.

Cum, wet and dripping, still leaked from Ikol’s needy hole. Though it was red and tender, it still fluttered wantonly under Loki’s touch as he slid a light finger along the trail of wetness that had been smeared all down the inside of Ikol’s leg.

Turning his gently skimming fingertips to trailing nails, Loki drew his hand along Ikol’s inner thigh and back towards his asshole with a light clawing touch. Again Loki soothed his hole with a gentle circling motion, teasing him. Ikol uttered not a single sound, but Loki could feel his whole body trembling beneath him in anticipation.

Without warning, Loki pressed two fingers in, and Ikol’s furled hole stretched to accept him without the slightest resistance. Cum leaked out from between Loki’s fingers as he pressed in deeper, finally making Ikol silently squirm. Loki relished in the pure Asgardian _heat_ he felt there deep within Ikol, and swirled his fingers in the cum he found there.

Hooking his fingers to draw out as much of the warm wetness as possible, Loki withdrew his fingers from Ikol’s asshole with a pop that made Ikol gasp sharply.

Loki brought the dripping fingers to his lips, and slid them greedily in his mouth. Closing his eyes, he savored the taste there for a long moment. Underneath the spunk of sweat and sex, apples and summer lingered on his tongue. When he finally withdrew his fingers from his sucking lips, his breath smoked faintly in the frigid air.

As if unsated, Loki unselfconsciously licked any remaining wetness from between his fingers, even chasing an errant drop that had trailed down his palm with his tongue. It was not until he had completely cleaned himself that he turned his attention to Ikol again.

Loki draped himself over Ikol’s still bent form. “I’m pleased. You did well,” he crooned in Ikol’s ear as he ran the same hand he had licked clean through Ikol’s hair, partly tousling it, partly wiping himself dry. “I knew I could trust you with this. You always were the most extraordinarily clever _little_ _slut_ ,” Loki hissed at his mirror-self.

The fond hand in Ikol’s hair moved downward to grasp his neck, pinning him strongly against the table. Loki’s remaining free hand moved to his robes, unfastening buttons and buckles, and parting layers of silk and fabric until his cock was free. He scooted Ikol’s spread legs further apart with a booted foot, making room for himself there.

Loki looked down, watched intently as he drew the head of his cock through the cum that had freshly spilled there, dripping from Ikol’s pink and pulsing hole. After teasing Ikol with the light pressure, Loki finally aligned himself and pushed himself in. He drove in deep and fully sheathed in a single wet stroke, only pausing to relish in the vital heat there. Loki was almost reluctant to pull himself out from that sweet warmth.

Almost. Until he had slammed himself back in again, causing Ikol to squirm and gasp so sweetly with the friction and force.

He fucked Ikol hard and fast, all but dry except for the wetness that still lingered there, but Loki cared not a shred.

_This_ would be something he would relish. Beyond honor, beyond revenge, beyond oaths, this was something he would enjoy for himself. Fucking into even the remnants of this Asgardian heat was like taking something vital back, stealing something that should have been his all along, and that Loki had only had brief tastes of...

But he intended to have his fill of everything he desired.

He spent himself inside Ikol, adding his own seed to that dripping from his doppelganger's overused asshole. Distressed that Loki had finished without him, Ikol tried bucking against him, against the desk, against anything, trying to find any friction or stimulation to chase his own denied release, but Loki still held him hard against the table, even as he withdrew his cock from Ikol. Ikol whined, but Loki held him fast until he had stopped his wriggling.

“Remember what I made you for,” Loki hissed as he released his copy. Ikol lay there for a moment, chastised. When he straightened, he straightened sullenly, but he did not reach for the hard cock that bobbed needily between his legs.

Loki bent and picked up the robe that Ikol had worn into the study and discarded on the floor. He wiped his cock clean on it before tucking himself away and neatly rearranging the buttons and buckles of his clothing with pristine care. He offered the soiled robe to the sullen doppleganger to don again.

Loki snorted. “If you are so eager for a good fuck, by all means, find our pet Asgardian. I’m sure it will take very little cleverness at all for you to find a ready cock to ride, my sweet little slut,” Loki purred dismissively.

He turned his back on Ikol and returned to his desk, once again taking up the scroll he been studying earlier, as if this had been but a minor interruption.

Ikol finished rebelting his robe, and as he turned to leave, Loki absently called out once again.

“Oh, and make sure to take our pet to the baths again once you are done. Thor will be taking a little trip, and will need to be prepared to travel some distance.” Ikol’s face went from eager to dubious at the prospect.

“Thor will be traveling to Grandmother’s house. And I am planning to prepare him a wolf.”


	4. Werewolf Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor must travel to meet Bestla, a jotnar he can't help but feel that he may know, despite having never been the Jotunheim. But first he must arrive at Utgard in one piece...

When Ikol opened the door for him, Thor was struck by the wall of raucous noise that thrummed impossibly loudly in the room beyond. 

Within lay a series of floor looms, all moving with industrious activity, clicking and groaning and clacking with the movements of their large heddles. At each loom a sat a thin man working the treadles and throwing their spindles as fast as Thor had seen any of his mother’s master weavers work. 

Thor would have wondered if it was the same room he had stumbled upon with Ikol the night before during their exploration of the castle—except he had found that room on the same level as his own quarters. He knew for a fact that  _ this _ room lay on a completely different level.

Thor  _ might _ have found himself feeling unsettled, thinking that perhaps it  _ was  _ the same room, but given the fact that Loki had told him that the castle had been made to suit him, it was probably best not to question the whims of either the castle of the sorcerer.

As he entered, the cacophony of the room began to subside as the crack of heddles gave way to the final soft whumps of beaters knocking wefts into place. As the noise and movement settled, a half dozen faces turned from their work to look in Thor’s direction. The faces were all a little different, as if each were made from their own little individual aspect or piece of the original, but each person bore the exact same familiar green eyes of all of Loki’s doppelgangers. 

All but the sorcerer in the middle of their hive of activity turned their attention towards Thor. Loki stood in the center of their new stillness, examining the woven cloth held taut on the beam before him.

On this loom, as all the others, was a fine cloth of vibrant red. Between all the looms, several yards of the same color fabric had been woven and taken up into the roller bars. Thor could not help but wonder how long they had worked on this task. He knew from his mother’s weaving that the industry that filled this room must have consumed a great deal of effort and time. Merely pulling the warps and threading the heddles of the wide bolts of fabric would have been the work of an entire day.

Loki motioned his doppelganger to move from his seat and took his place at the loom, though he did not move to set his own feet to the treadles to set it in motion, as his doppelgangers had been doing till a moment ago. 

As if breaking a geas upon them, the other copies stepped from their looms and began to cut the cloth away from the remaining warp, tying them off in fashion that Thor recognized was meant to be properly edged later. Once the fabrics had been removed from all but Loki’s loom, the doppelgangers approached Thor with their cloths in hand, holding them out to him as if for approval.

Thor took the edge of one of the proffered fabrics and felt it. The cloth felt not unlike wool. Though it was lighter than he would have expected, it felt soft and densely woven. The color itself was also very striking, and more likely than not, would have been very expensive in Asgard if the dyers had known the trick of it. The red was rich and vibrant. Though, unsettlingly, the color it reminded Thor of the most was the color of fresh blood. 

“What will you make from this?” Thor asked the doppelganger that held the proffered cloth.

It was Loki who answered from his loom.

“If you shall be traveling with me, you will need to be dressed more suitably.”

Thor looked dubiously at the cloth. The weave was tight, but that would mean nothing outside, in the cold of Jotunheim where the wind cut into every seam of waxed leather and would steal the heat from even layer upon layer of clothing and furs. It hardly seemed like it could be any better protection from the cold than his own kit of winter gear. 

But—if the cloth were spellwoven—

Thor had heard of armor crafted with spells woven in, though usually such things held spells of protection from enemy weapons. Spellwoven items were rare even in Asgard, and required a great deal of time and magic to craft.

But Loki could furnish an entire craftsmen’s workshop by himself.

It was then that Thor noticed that the doppelganger craftsmen had began to form a tight circle around him. Thor turned to look for Ikol, but only spotted a last glimpse of the boy as he slipped under the arms of the converging Loki’s to duck out of the way. They came at Thor, baring their cloths, falling upon him like a ravenous pack of tailors. 

Thor found himself pulled and prodded, yanked to this side or that, spun here and there between the flurry of hands and the flutter of cloth. A glitter of needles flew in stabbing spirals at the edges of his vision, and Thor was amazed at the chaos around him. And more amazed that for all their action, they did not tangle him in trailing lengths of cloth or prick him with their whipping needles even as he tried to jerk away.

And suddenly the hands were gone, and the doppelgangers parted, leaving Thor almost dizzy in their wake. Faster than Thor could have found possible, he stood in their center wearing a whip-stitched preliminary fitting for a cloak.

Loki looked Thor over from where he sat behind the loom, eventually nodding his approval. He beckoned Thor to come to him and Ikol trailed in his wake again as Thor approached.

“I will need something of yours to finish the cloak,” Loki explained. “When it is finished, as long as you wear it, you will not feel the cold, or the heat, or the damp, no matter which realm we travel to. 

But you must first share a thread of yourself in its weave before it will know you and your needs to finish the charm. It will not harm you—I merely need you to let Ikol take a single hair.”

Thor tried not to let his hesitation show. It was never a good idea to let a sorcerer take something as vital and alive as a hair. But Loki had sworn oaths not to harm him, and he was also under the protection of his mother and father’s runes. And there was no denying that such a cloak would be valuable in his time on Jotunheim.

Thor bent his head and allowed Ikol to run his fingers through his hair. Ikol combed his fingers down the length several times, as if searching for just the right strand to select. Finally he seemed to find one that met his approval, and Thor watched through the curtain of hair as Ikol followed it to the root. With a sharp pull near his scalp he pulled it out, quick and all, and turned to offer the long golden thread to Loki. 

Thor probed his scalp with a finger as he watched Loki examine the quick of the root before finally turning to the loom again. From some hidden pocket Loki removed needle of polished yellow bone from a small needle tin. He threaded Thor’s hair through the eye and bent to the cloth stretched on the loom before him. 

He stitched into the cloth with the golden hair, drawing each small stitch tight. He sewed the thread in a continuous pattern that Thor could barely make out against the red of the cloth, except when the witch lights that brightly lit the room glinted against the gold of his hair. When Loki reached the end of his thread, he tied it off  and looped the end into the fabric, not cutting or breaking it once. Then, just as the other copy Loki’s had done, Loki cut the cloth away from the loom and tied off the loose threads.

Thor felt the movement around him too late. He turned around to see that the copy-Loki’s had converged upon him again. They took the final cloth from Loki’s hands, and began to arrange the fabric to drape over his head, pinning and adjusting the fit and cut behind him. When again they parted, a hood had been attached to his cloak. 

Thor reached for the hem of the hood that hung over his brow, and there he swore he could faintly feel the raised thread of hair Loki had sewn into the fabric. He could not feel any special warmth or magic emanate from it.

And then, the hands were on his shoulders again, carefully removing the lightly stitched fabric form his shoulders. Thor turned to see the last of the doppelgangers folding the cloth carefully between them as they joined the others already retreating from the room.

“The cloak shall be finished shortly. I advise you make any preparations necessary for travel, as we will be departing soon,” Loki said behind Thor’s turned back.

“Departing?” Thor echoed as he turned around again. Loki had not mentioned any travel before. He could not help but feel a surge of excitement. Where would they go first? Had Loki already discovered where their first adventure must be? 

“Where are we going? What weapons shall I bring? Shall I—”

Loki cut him off with a gesture as if warding off an overeager puppy. “Weapons will hardly be necessary. I am merely fulfilling the obligation the All-Father tasked me with, and we shall be traveling to a remote Jotun hall called Utgard. While it is not a complete waste of my time to consult with the Jotnar there, we will  _ not _ be in any need of weapons there. Especially not to see Bestla.”

Thor recalled the faint memories that that name summoned. Like Loki, Bestla must have been of Asgard long ago. 

Thor asked, “Is Bestla a sorceror like you?”

“Everyone in Utgard is a sorcerer,” Loki explained, less than patiently. “It is where we are instructed.”

Thor bit his tongue on any further question. He did not know why his father had wanted him to meet this Bestla, but perhaps they would be of aid to him, as Loki was meant to be? He would be meeting Bestla soon enough it seemed.

“Ikol, I shall need you to make preparations in the courtyard.” Loki’s ordered Ikol, setting him in motion even as Loki turned to Thor.

“Thor, once you are prepared to travel and the cloak is completed, you may join us in the courtyard. Please do not tarry. You will want to travel as far as possible before making camp at nightfall.”

Thor nodded and turned for the doors, but as he stepped outside, he hesitated, trying to recall how exactly to reach his own quarters from this level. Nothing, excepting the baths far below in the rock of the mountain, seemed fixed in its location.

Loki stepped around Thor and walked across the corridor, opening the door almost directly opposite them. Despite the flights Ikol had led Thor over to reach this room the first time, Thor could clearly see that his quarters were behind the door that Loki had opened for him. 

And for the first time, Thor began to wonder how lost he would become trying to wander Loki’s hall without Ikol by his side...

“Follow the stairs down, and you will find the receiving hall that opens into the courtyard,” were Loki’s only parting words, as if reading Thor’s mind. “We will be waiting for you.”

Thor nodded and retreated inside his magically migrating rooms.

* 

Hands on the great door, Thor stood at the threshold steeling himself against what awaited him outside. 

Thor’s preparations had not taken long at all, especially after seeing that most of Thor’s traveling pack had already been prepared and refreshed with several traveling essentials. Some Thor recognized, but there were a few additions to it that he knew he had never added. He’d began to prepare his kit of winter garb for travel, but he had been forced to change out of it when the copy-Loki that had come to deliver Thor’s finished cloak had insisted that he change to a much lighter, and distressingly temperate, set of clothing. 

Thor donned the cloak, and after the doppelganger had fussed over the drape of it, he seemed to settle into a satisfaction with the final fit on Thor. 

The cloak itself appeared flawless to Thor’s eyes, despite the impossibly fast work that had been put into it. It was secured in place over his chest by two patterned medallions of silver. It was light and comfortable, and could be easily tossed over the shoulder to free his weapon arm, or drawn tightly about himself to ward off the wind and weather.

But how well it would work against Jotunheim’s harsh weather would be the real test. Surely this could be nothing less than a spellwoven cloak, and surely it would be an effective ward against the cold. But Thor’s bones ached at the mere memory of the chilly work of traveling up Loki’s mountain days before. The magic in the cloak would have to prove itself more effective than layers upon layers of wool and fur and leather, because his traveling kit now made up clothing light enough as to be chilly in an asgardian autumn. 

As Thor  lingered at the threshhold, he fingered the almost invisible charm Loki had picked out in the fabric as he drew the hood over his hair. There would be only one way to find out.

He could only have faith that in this; Loki was no liar and that this was no trick.

Gathering his resolve, Thor opened the doors, and stepped from the warm safety of Loki’s castle. Thor had drawn his cloak tightly about him, but as he stepped from beneath the sheltering portico he puffed a warm ‘ _ ha! _ ’ of relief. 

Yes he could feel a bit of a cool nip in the air, and his breath fogged in front of him, but stepping into the forbidding cold of Jotunheim felt completely pleasant, like playing in last night's snow on a day so warm it would be melted all to puddles by noon. 

Thor loosened his grip on the cloak and let it billow around him. Still he did not feel the bite of cold air swirling between himself and the cloak. He pulled his hood back felt a breeze ruffle his hair. He tipped his head back and enjoyed the freedom of no longer needing to be bundled in layer after layer, or feeling the frost gather on his hair. 

He would not even need gloves with such a cloak, which was a relief. Thor recalled how he had fumbled his weapon when trying to wield it using such thick gloves. He patted the axe at his side, a utilitarian battle axe, just intimidating enough to deal with anything they encountered along the road.

It felt... pleasant. It seemed almost disrespectful to even dare think that of Jotunheim’s killing cold in such a flippant manner, but it did. Thor found it easy to be grateful to Loki for this gift, despite all the sorcerer’s distant prickliness. 

Thor looked across the courtyard, searching for Loki. Though Thor had not taken too long, he was sure the sorcerer was likely ready and eager to go. 

But it wasn’t Loki that caught his eye. 

Standing in the deep snow of Loki’s courtyard, Thor caught sight of a long-legged, impossibly large, black wolf. 

Thor reached for his axe, and just as he was about to surge forward, charging the massive beast, Loki stepped out from behind it’s dark shadow. 

Loki walked calmly around it, his pale hand soothing the thick glossy fur of its shoulder before pausing before the beast’s chest. 

The ear’s gave a flick, and then suddenly it was looking at Thor, spearing him as it stared down it’s long muzzle at him. Sharp green eyes pierced at him with an intelligence that burned within that lupine face. 

Loki gave a signal, and the wolf turned back to the sorcerer and with a small whine, settled itself to lay on the snowy ground before him. It even lowered it’s head down between it’s paws, blowing a snort of of snowflakes to spin around the buckles of Loki’s boots.

The beast was obviously one of Loki’s, and with a dubious caution, Thor withdrew his grip from the axe still sheathed at his side before approaching them both in the courtyard.

The beast looked very much like the wolves of Asgard, except for the massive size. Even lying down flat, it was clearly as large as warhorse, and Thor could not help but notice how it’s paws were bigger than his own head. As Thor approached snow flurried around the creature’s tail as it thudded it’s thickly furred length on the snowy ground behind it.

Thor gave the wolf’s jaws a wide berth as he walked around to Loki’s side. He was still staring down, transfixed with the beast staring up at him, when Loki spoke.

“Is the cloak to your satisfaction?” Loki asked indifferently, as if he did not care one way or another. It obviously worked, or Thor would not have lasted this long in Jotunheim’s cold.

Thor finally looked away from the wolf before him and fingered the raised pattern on a medallion. 

“It truly is a fine cloak,” Thor answered honestly. “Your servants did amazing work, making such amazing spellwoven work in such a short time, and I have never had such a practical item charmed just for me. I greatly appreciate the thoughtfulness and the skill that it was made with!” 

Loki’s only answer to Thor’s effusive compliment was a nod of acknowledgement, as if it needed no further acceptance. 

“You will need it for the travel to Utgard. I shall be traveling ahead, but none should stop you during our travel, as Laufey has already granted us passage over these lands. The keep of Utgard is several territories away, and shall require over a day of travel by wolf-back. 

Thor’s eyes widened. “Wolf... back? You mean we are going to be riding  _ giant wolves?”  _ Thor asked disbelieving. 

“No,” Loki answered matter-of-factly. “ _ You  _ shall be riding a wolf. I shall fly.” 

Loki smoothed the feathered bolero that closed in a high stiff collar around his long neck. Thor realized that it did bear a resemblance to the full length cape that Loki had worn before. It appeared that it could be made into a more portable garment if needed.

Thor looked at the wolf dubiously. It had no saddle, and the only tack it bore was a thick leather collar around its neck, decorated with jangling rings. Thor moved cautiously closer to the beast, which lifted it’s head and opened it’s mouth to loll a large wet sloppy tongue. It’s lips pulled back in a grin that revealed a length of razor sharp fangs and teeth within it’s long lupine muzzle. 

Slowly, Thor moved to the wolf’s shoulder, bent and took hold of one of the rings on the wolf’s collar. It did not move to snap at him but merely closed its eyes and continued panting. 

Screwing his courage to the sticking place, he committed to the action and threw his other leg over the wolf’s well muscled back, while grabbing another ring in his other hand. It was as broad as a horse, and Thor tightened his legs, trying to grip with his knees. Once he’d found what must pass for his seat, the wolf gently rose to his feet and stood waiting before Loki. 

Thor adjusted his grip on the rings but realized there was no way he could control this beast, much less direct it where to go. It would probably take everything he had just to keep on it’s back if it started moving faster than a slow walk. He tried to hide his nervousness as he smiled down at Loki. 

“They never gave us lessons in wolf-riding in Asgard,” Thor half-joked at Loki. The wolf’s ears were pricked straight up and forward, and it’s legs were trembling with stilled movement. It seemed disturbingly ready for a run.

“There’s only one lesson in wolf riding, my prince,” Loki let his lip curl in a smirk. “Stay on it’s back and don’t let the wolf eat you.” 

Loki gave the large haunch a slap, and the wolf leapt into a jarring run. Thor clung tight, burying his face in the thick pointed fur. He prayed he would not fall off.

*

The sun was falling low in the valleys that stretched between the looming mountains, blanketing the sparse woods in shadows that precursored the jotun night. Thor wondered if the beast would decide to stop soon, or if the real secret of wolf-riding was how to stay on as the beast galloped all through the night and into the next day as well.

So far, Thor had yet to take a tumble, but it had been a close thing a time or two. The wolf had been far less shy about taking on obstacles than any horse, scrabbling over rocks or under tree trunks, as if it were testing Thor’s grip. 

Once or twice he had almost lost it—his hands slipping from the rings only to grab for desperate purchase in the thick black fur of the wolf’s nape. He’d guiltily shook loose hair from his fingers when he’d found purchase again, but the wolf seemed to take little or no notice.

As Thor became more accustomed to the wolf's long and loping pace, he began to try and move with the beast and keep a wary eye for oncoming obstacle that might dislodge him, but it was still a difficult ridership to master. 

He had little attention to spare, but he could not help but think of this new place they were traveling to. Utgard. He had heard reference to it in some of the Jotnar histories, but he had never heard much about the place itself. 

If it was a place of Jotun sorcery, it made sense that his father should have ties to it. Though it was not spoken of often, Thor knew his father was skilled in the magic from all the Nine Realms, including Jotunheim. 

Thor also thought of Bestla. A person who must have dwelt in Asgard as an asgardian—even after the war with Jotunheim, if Thor could trust his memories—and yet had returned, as Loki had. Though Thor felt a feeling of intense fondness associated with his vague memory, he wondered why this Bestla would want to see him now after so long, and why it was so important that his father tasked Loki with the chore of taking him. 

It was a round of thoughts that Thor had no answer to, and merely looped in useless circles, so he dismissed them for more concrete thoughts.

Thor thought of how he wished Ikol had traveled with him. His friend would have probably mocked him for his rough riding technique, though Thor could hardly imagine Ikol riding a wolf at a lope any more gracefully. At the very least he might have pointers for Thor, though Thor suspected they would probably echo Loki’s suggestion of ‘be a rider and not a snack.’

From the sparse brush, a creature even larger than the wolf burst across the trail before them. Thor saw a flash of large scooping antlers and a hide of white fur against pale forest as it galloped through the woods. The wolf started after it before catching itself and stopping short, whining as if torn. After a moment’s hesitation, it continued on down the trail it had been following, leaving the arctic moose to travel down its own track.

But to Thor’s relief, it seemed the wolf had decided it had also had enough of the travel. It sniffed out a cave that, despite being too small for a jotun, appeared to have not been used by any of the smaller jotun fauna. 

Thor slid gratefully from the wolf’s back, his exhausted legs nearly buckling under him as they hit the cave floor. No amount of horse ridership could prepare one for the experience of riding a wolf for a full day at a gallop. The wolf sniffed at Thor for a moment, and then as if satisfied, it turned and bounded off. Thor watched it go, its tail held high as it disappeared into the darkness. He hoped that it would return without Loki there to call it to heel.

Left by himself, Thor looked around the cave. Despite the caves small size for most jotnar there was evidence that it had been used as a shelter in the past, which puzzled Thor, though he did not dwell upon this either. Thor found evidence of a fire pit not far from the cave entrance, and though he did not need a fire for warmth, he could see other practicalities in lighting a blaze, especially if he was not familiar with what other creatures might have also used the cave in the past and might need to be deterred. 

Thor searched through his pack, and while he found no flint, he did find witchlight stones, which could be kindled into a campfire without the use of firewood. Satisfied with this, Thor struck them to light, and then collected some clean snow so he could warm some water. 

Thor laid out his bedroll for extra padding and sat, if rather sore and uncomfortably, by the fire and watched as the jotun night fell outside his cave. His axe lay close at hand, but as the night deepened, he saw nothing except for the glitter of eyeshine as unseen creatures moved in the distant darkness.

A growl in the darkness set Thor reaching for his axe, but as large the shape resolved itself from the shadows, Thor relaxed. His wolf had returned and it dragged a fresh, bloody haunch with it. 

The wolf dropped it in front of Thor, just missing staining his bedroll with the gore. It lolled its tongue expectantly at him, and even in the darkness, Thor could see that its muzzle was wet and glinting with blood. The wolf had already fed. He supposed this was Thor’s share.

With sore legs and a creaking back, Thor slowly rose to his feet and inspected the haunch. It was large and meaty under the thick fur, and Thor could see that is was rich with fat. Between his belt knife and his axe, Thor was able to skin, butcher, and set aside much of the meat, packing most of it in some clean snow towards the back of the cave to save for the morning. Several smaller pieces Thor set to cook over the witchlight fire. As Thor sat back upon his sleeping roll to watch the fire and turn the meat, the wolf settled itself behind Thor, curling around his back.

The meat sizzled and popped as the fat melted juicily. It was not long before Thor was satisfied with campside cooking and gingerly pulled a piece off the fire with his knife. He blew on it before taking a taste, carefully biting a piece off his knife. The meat was rich, if a bit strong tasting and gamey. Thor ate half of his portion before encountering a difficult to chew piece of tendon. Daringly, Thor held the hunk of meat and gristle out flat on his hand towards the wolf. The beast’s nostrils flared as it sniffed at Thor’s hand before snorfling up the scrap in a single lick.

Thor laughed and wiped his slobbery hand against his leg. He offered his cup  of meltwater next, in case the wolf was thirsty, but it did little more than sniff before losing interest.

It did however have interest in Thor. Pushing Thor’s drink out of the way with its muzzle and nosing past Thor’s fending hands, it licked at his neck and face. Thor squawked, trying to push its nose away, but the beast was persistent and redoubled his efforts, bowling Thor over and flat onto his bedroll. The wolf rolled with him, pinning Thor beneath its chest, continuing the lick Thor insistently.

Thor struggled to squirm free, but found himself held fast between the wolf’s forepaws. The wolf stopped its wet barrage and turned its head to lay its neck against Thor’s chest with a sigh. It paused there, but after a moment began to complain with a whine as it turned its head over, as it rubbing its neck against Thor.

Thor sputtered and tried to reassure the wolf. It was obvious that it meant no harm, or he’d be dead already. Perhaps this was a game? 

“Okay, you got me. If you want to wrestle, perhaps we can have a fair contest of it later?”

The wolf snorted derisively, and began to lick at Thor’s face again. It licked at Thor’s neck which made him laugh as it tickled his ear. It licked at Thor’s mouth, rasping a warm wet tongue over his lips and teeth, causing Thor to sputter even as the wolf licked at his lips even more.

Thor began to feel uncomfortably aware of how much he could not do to escape the wolf holding him down. Again the wolf laid its head down, baring its neck over Thor’s panting chest, and Thor reached up to grab the fur there. He was breathing hard after barely catching his breath between licks, and grabbed at the rings of the collar, hoping to stop the game before the wolf moved again. 

When Thor’s hands grasped the collar, the wolf whined insistently.

Perhaps...?

Thor felt for the clasp and undid it. As the thick leather slipped from the thick fur of its neck, the wolf stood up and yipped happily, before beginning to vigorously shake its fur. 

And in the flurry of fur and the dancing witchlight, the air around them grew vibrating and frenetic, popping with dispersals of energy. The black shape on top of Thor shook and smoked, the whirling shape streaking from pure black to bone white. Thick fur flew off like thrown feathers before floating into nothingness and aether, leaving only soft pale hide behind. Long claw tipped limbs reshaped themselves into skinny, delicate arms and legs. 

The only thing that remained black was the mane of hair that topped Ikol’s head, still shaking like a dog flicking off the last drops of dampness that clung to their fur. 

Ikol gave a sigh of relief, and dove into Thor’s surprised arms where he still lay flat upon the floor. He curled his naked body in under Thor’s arm, drawing the cloak in tight after him as if it were a blanket.

“Ikol?!” Thor cried incredulously. “Loki turned you  _ into a wolf?!” _

Ikol sidestepped Thor’s questions by reaching up and pulling Thor’s neck towards him, licking at Thor’s ear again, this time with a clearer intent that went straight to Thor’s cock. When Ikol’s teeth caught Thor’s ear and held him there, his attention was completely trapped.

Ikol released Thor’s ear and gently whispered his warning.

“Perhaps next time you will remove the collar promptly. Unless you’d prefer to be fucked by the wolf.”

Thor shuddered, as such a scenario spiraling in his imagination unbidden. That long tongue licking along his body as Thor squirmed, helpless to get free. He balked at the mental image of anything further involving Ikol’s massive wolf body, and tripped over his answer. 

“Ikol, y—You mad—fuck!” Thor gasped as Ikol’s hand slipped beneath his travel worn clothing. “Yes I’ll get the col—collar off! You don’t need to convince me!”

Ikol rewarded Thor’s babble with a proper kiss on his lips this time. With a knee he nudged Thor’s legs apart and slid himself in between them. It felt good, but—Thor broke off the kiss.

“Ikol, how can you not be exhausted? I have been riding a wolf—well,  _ you _ for almost the entire day, and I am simply too tired to fuck you now. I can hardly move and just want to lie on my back on a soft pallet and try to rest,” Thor cajoled, trying to appeal Ikol’s sympathy.

Ikol did not seem deterred by Thor’s complaint. In fact... Ikol seemed slyly pleased.

Ikol rose from under the nest he had dug into under Thor’s cloak and started to try and make Thor comfortable. He helped Thor lay more comfortably on his bed roll, and tried to encourage him to relax, as he rubbed a soothing hand over him. Thor eyed Ikol suspiciously as the boy helped him remove his riding boots and extra weapon belts, but neither did he stop Ikol. 

When Ikol loosened the medallions that held Thor’s cloak in place, Thor stiffened. But as Ikol spread the cloak out beneath them and over Thor’s sleeping pallet, Thor discovered that the charm that gave him warmth even in the middle of a jotun night still held if he was laying upon it as well. 

Thor saw as Ikol rummaged through the pack Thor had brought and pulled out a small remedy kit. Ikol set aside two bottles, one with a liniment for sore and strained muscles, and another with a treatment for cuts and wounds. With mock sympathetic noises, Ikol urged Thor to strip himself more thoroughly. Thor hesitated, but could not deny that it would be preferable to treat any saddle-less sores now, rather than exacerbate them on their journey tomorrow. Thor knew full well that even with his riding pants, he had rubbed the insides of his knees knees raw with the friction of their ride, and that his thighs and backside would be bruised where they wasn’t chaffed to Hel by their rough ride. Ikol was only too pleased to help relieve Thor of his pants.

Ikol urged Thor to lay on his belly, and Thor rolled over, having gone along with him this far. The air around them became herby and astringent as Ikol uncorked the bottles. Ikol bent over Thor, and with gentle fingers he rubbed a thick greasy ointment along the red and raw insides of Thor’s knees. The relief was immediate as it soothed away the burning chafe of his skin. Ikol was deftly thorough as he searched out any spot in need of the treatment.

Next Ikol dripped an oily liniment along the backs of Thor’s legs. With deft and kneading fingers, he worked to soothe down the knot of hard muscle in Thor’s calves, and then worked his way up. After doing each leg, Ikol helped Thor discard his tunic, and then started in on the strained muscles of Thor’s back.

If Thor had not skin to hold his shape, he was sure he would have melted to a puddle under Ikol’s hands. Down his back the prodding fingers worked their magic until they were kneading the tense muscles of his ass. Ikol probed and massaged and worked out any trace of tension that remained, while soothing away the ache of each bruise. Thor moaned appreciatively. 

If he weren’t so exhausted, he’d be more than happy to oblige Ikol and give him a good fuck just so Ikol’s hands would never stop touching him...

Ikol did stop, but it was only to take a damp cloth and wipe away the ointment that Ikol had rubbed on his chafed skin earlier. The skin had healed over, and all that remained was a pink new skin, only a little tender as it healed away the unjury with the aid of Ikol’s medicine. 

Feeling beyond relaxed, Thor began to doze, even as Ikol’s hands returned to sooth over his body, sliding down between his legs, and coaxing him to spread his legs wider. Circling his thumbs over Thor’s asscheeks, Thor could feel Ikol spreading him open, and felt a warm breath tickle his hole...

Thor sprung awake as Ikol licked a long stripe between his legs, trailing wetly from his tant to his hole. Thor clamped his legs in surprise, but Ikol braced his shoulders against Thor’s thighs as his hands held Thor open for him. 

Thor gasped. “Ikol! Ah—” 

Ikol kissed and circled his tongue over Thor’s asshole, cutting off his protest. Ikol’s hands again took up their massaging rhythm, soothing Thor’s thighs to relax for him, even as Ikol kept running his tongue wetly over Thor’s asshole. 

Thor groaned in pleasure and felt his cock twitch at Ikol’s attention. Ikol felt so good, and he could feel his resolve crumbling under Ikol’s attention. Perhaps if he rolled over, Ikol could ride his cock. And well, if Thor fell asleep in the middle, Ikol would only have himself to blame... 

It’s not like Ikol could tease him  _ too _ mercilessly if exhaustion consumed him in the middle without inviting Thor to comment that it was Ikol’s own fault for not keeping him awake in the middle.

But Ikol held Thor’s hips steady and would not let him flip himself over. He sucked at Thor’s asshole before he pushed his tongue past Thor’s tight ring of of muscle, making Thor’s hips buck as he cried out at the sensation. Ikol soothed Thor’s backside with a kiss against his cheek before finally letting go of Thor’s hips.

Walking his hands up either side of Thor, Ikol draped himself over Thor with his body. As he covered Thor this way, he brought his lips next to Thor’s ear.

“Shall I make you ask  _ nicely _ , Thor?” Ikol’s hips wiggled suggestively between Thor’s spread legs, rubbing his naked hips against Thor’s toned ass. 

“I promise I’ll make the  _ ride _ a lot more fun for us both..,” Ikol cajoled.

Thor shuddered.

All day he had ridden the Ikol-wolf, trying to match the jarring rhythm of the wolf’s loping gait. Trying to roll his body with the wolf to avoid the painful bounce as they slammed into each other with each step. Trying, most of all, not to fall off.

And here Ikol lay on top of him, expecting Thor to beg him to fuck him in the ass, pounding against the barely healed, bruised and sore flesh he had already abused with their last rough ride. 

To let Ikol fuck him into an exhausted sleep, only to then have to wake up with the dawn to get back on the wolf’s back, and continue their ride once again tomorrow, for who knew how long?

_ Thor couldn’t say no. _

He craned his neck to meet Ikol’s gaze over his shoulder and growled. “You better fuck me now before I go and find myself that wolf.”

Ikol barked a laugh and ground himself against Thor’s ass to give him a taste.

Dragging clawing fingers gently down Thor’s back, Ikol drew himself to sit back on his knees between Thor’s legs. Thor heard him uncork another bottle and tried not to jump as Ikol dribbled oil between Thor’s spread cheeks. 

He probed along Thor’s taint, making Thor’s hardening cock throb as Ikol applied pressure there with a massaging thumb, before sliding back up to explore the furl of Thor’s asshole. Thor murmured wordless encouragement as Ikol teased his opening, circling it with a slick finger before finally pushing in. Despite his exhaustion, Thor did not mind Ikol taking it slow. It was not often that he received this sort of attention, and he knew how much it could hurt to try and do things in a hurried rush. 

Ikol’s long finger was a pleasant intrusion, gently stretching him open and playing with his rim as he dragged his finger in and out. Gently, Ikol added another finger pushing itself in shallowly, and Thor felt the hint of burn as his ass opened to take both. Ikol soothed him, with an an encouraging palm stroking his inner thigh as he slid his fingers in deeper. When Ikol scissored his fingers, he gently nipped at Thor’s meaty asscheek, making Thor groan at both the burn and the thrill of Ikol’s teeth on his skin.

Thor knew when the third finger was coming, because Ikol dripped more oil on Thor’s hole and over his hands. Again Ikol worked him slowly, fucking Thor with shallowly probing fingers, before slicking them in more deeply in Thor’s body. Thor tried to relax and accept this intrusion as he had the other fingers, but Thor caught himself holding his breath. He tried to force himself to relax around Ikol’s fingers. Ikol hissed as the firm muscles of Thor’s hole gripped him tightly, and despite the sharp stretch, Thor’s breaths turned to pants of building excitment at the thought of holding Ikol’s cock inside him just as tightly. Despite the burn, he rocked his hips against Ikol’s hand, taking them deeper even as he danced on the edge of receiving more pain than pleasure as Ikol prepared him. 

Thor slid his hand down and palmed his own flagging cock, and Ikol noticed the movement and moved to match him. Thor gasped, as his own rhythm urged Ikol’s fingers to move faster, but he did not stop, even as Ikol’s fingers speared him faster and deeper with his pumping fist. Thor urged his body to accept Ikol, bearing down on Ikol’s fingers and impatient to feel the the rest of Ikol inside him.

With the next thrust in, Ikol pushed in hard and deep. Ikol switched his grip, flipping his hand palm up even as his fingers were thrust into the final knuckle in Thor’s assole. Ikol’s fingers probed searchingly, rubbing along Thor’s inner wall until he found the spot that made Thor gasp and buck with pleasure. 

Ikol urged Thor over and onto his knees with his chest still pressed to the bedroll. Using the new angle, Ikol fucked him open, teasing Thor at that spot until he was begging for more; another finger, Ikol’s cock, something—anything—that could fill Thor up and push him over that white hot precipice. .

“Please,” Thor gasped into his forearms. The hand that had been soothing Thor along the small of his back shifted, moving to pull away that curtain of hair as Ikol examined him. Thor looked over his shoulder and met Ikol’s eyes. The burning want for this that he saw there matched his own. 

Ikol slid his fingers from Thor’s ass, and Thor moaned at their loss. Thor buried his face in his arms and begged for more.

“I need you in me Ikol, please I want you to fuck me, please Ikol, ikol, ikol,” Thor babbled, barely hearing his own words as they stumbled over themselves.  

Ikol gave Thor’s hair a gentle yank, pulling his face from hiding in the nest of his arms, before soothing it down again and tugging at Thor’s shoulder.

“On your back. Didn’t you say you wanted it that way?” Ikol teased, recalling Thor’s earlier request. Ikol’s order was punctuated by the wet noise of hand slicking his cock with fresh behind Thor where he could not see. Thor’s mouth went dry in nervous anticipation, even as he snorted at Ikol’s words.

Despite taking three of Ikol’s long, thin fingers, Thor knew that Ikol’s cock would still be an intense stretch for him to take. But Thor was hungry to take it, to feel that burn and feel Ikol filling him up and moving inside him. He flipped himself onto his shoulders, spreading himself wide for Ikol on his red cloak as his hair sprawled in a tangled halo around his head. Ikol’s said nothing, but Thor saw his nostrils flare at the sight of Thor wantonly offering himself up to him. Thor allowed his arms to dangle above his head, inviting Ikol in to ravish him. 

Ikol did not require any more of an invitation. He grasped Thor’s hips and pulled them close. Thor was more than happy to wrap his well muscled thighs around Ikol’s slight body as Ikol lined himself up to push himself into Thor’s tight asshole. 

Even with the generous slick between them, the pressure of Ikol’s cock speared him slowly as Ikol pushed the flared head of his length into Thor’s ass made Thor hitch his breath. There was intense pressure, and then warm buzzing pleasure as it finally pushed past his barriers and began to stretch him full again. It was enough to make Thor gasp and blink back against the sharp feeling, as he took the breath he had not realized he had been holding. 

Ikol paused there as Thor wiped his eyes and gave a strained laugh before taking another deep breath, holding it, and then letting it out again. He repeated this again. And again. Until his body had stopped shaking, straining under the sensation of Ikol’s cock spearing him open. When finally the stretch of Ikol’s girth no longer felt like an intense intrusion, Thor willed himself, sheepishly, into loosening the tight clamp of his knees that had been squeezing vice-tight against Ikol’s waist.

Ikol took in a grateful breath, and leaned forward, kissing away the wetness on Thor’s face and soothing reassuring hands along Thor’s muscular ribs, all the while pushing himself incrementally deeper into Thor.

Stopping short of bottoming out, Ikol began to gently pull out. He continued to take Thor patiently, keeping his thrusts shallow and slow. With a sniffle to clear his nose, Thor began to pull himself back against Ikol, challenging himself to take more. 

While Thor was not without some experience, he had never had anyone inside him like this, feeling their hard cock moving inside him. And taking Ikol felt so exhilarating, like a mad balance between too much and not enough. There was a pleasure in that stretch that Thor had never known with just smaller toys or fingers, and Ikol knew how to move in a way that wrung every drop of pleasure that he could out of Thor, despite the sharp edge that came with every thrust. 

Ikol made him feel so full that he felt a regret with every withdrawal of Ikol’s cock, only to be replaced by the wave of pleasure that made his skin prickle with static when Ikol would again thrust in to rub over that  _ spot _ . When Ikol hit the white out spot that he had found with his fingers—Thor could believe he could come just from riding his friend’s cock alone. 

Thor rocked back more insistently, meeting Ikol’s thrusts until Ikol was spearing him deep with every thrust, Ikol’s hips slapping against the remaining bruises that still lingered on Thor’s thighs. It adding an extra aching note to the sharp pleasure and burning sting of each thrust. Ikol gave his mottled ass a slap, making Thor cry out as his entire body tensed around the thrusting cock. 

And then Ikol was grabbing Thor’s hips, dragging Thor’s waist into the air as Ikol crouched on his knees before him, fucking into him so that every thrust plowed into him more forcefully and deeper than Thor had ever imagined. Pleasure; pain—did not matter as Ikol drove Thor closer to release. Thor could feel a growl in his chest as Ikol fucked him hard and fast, spearing him open and driving his shoulders into the bedroll beneath them. 

Distantly, he could feel Ikol bending over him, kissing him along his chest and up to his neck, before his kisses turned to sharp teeth, biting him him hard enough to mark him on the meat of his shoulder. Thor bucked hard against Ikol,  but it merely added to the swirl of sensations that were overwhelming his body, building to a storm surge that would drown him when it hit. It was becoming too much, and Ikol kept fucking into him as if he had stamina left to fuck until the end of time, giving Thor not a moment to catch his breath. 

The wave broke over Thor and lightning danced behind his eyes as he came. Thick ropes of come painted his chest and chin as Ikol hammered into him, chasing his own release as Thor’s body clenched tightly around him. Ikol lowered Thor’s hips back down, and draped himself over Thor’s sweaty, come painted body. Sleepily, Thor wrapped his arms around his friend, even as Ikol buried his face in the crook of Thor’s shoulder, still fucking with abandon. When Ikol came, his cry was muffled by the pillow of Thor’s sweaty, tangled hair.

Dozily, Thor thought it did seem odd that when Ikol withdrew, he could not feel the wet trickle of come leak down his thigh from his loosened hole, but the pull of exhaustion dragged him down down further towards a leaden sleep. 

Thor pulled Ikol tight against his side, and with a final chagrined thought, he recalled how he had wished Ikol had accompanied him despite his friend’s penchant for mischief. Now Thor merely wished he would not regret going for such a hard ride tonight when it came time to ride the wolf the next morning.

* 

The morning mists had not even cleared from the forest outside their cave when Ikol cruelly urged Thor awake and moving towards their goal. Thor grudgingly accepted a portion of meat that Ikol had unpacked from the snow and already cooked over the witchlight firestones, chewing the gamey meat as he sat all but naked on his bedroll with his cape draped loosely over his shoulders. 

His body was still sticky, but the twinge in his ass bore the more pressing reminder of the night before. He’d known it hadn’t been a good idea, but his father had often warned him his rash actions would be something he’d come to regret. 

This probably hadn’t been his father’s meaning, but as good a fuck as it had been, he did have his regrets. 

Mostly he regretted not putting it off for a day when he didn’t have at least half a day’s ride ahead of him.

Thor used some meltwater Ikol had warmed to clean the oil and sweat from his body. And wondered how well Ikol’s ointments would work on a sore asshole. Before dressing he found the jar Ikol had used and figured it would not hurt to find out.

Though it was Ikol that had urged Thor into motion and on their way this morning, his friend was not without his own reluctance to be on the road. While he did not dawdle, Ikol did not seem exactly eager when he brought the collar to Thor to help him secure it on his neck. 

Thor stepped back as the frenetic transformation overtook his friend again, bending Ikol forward as reality seemed to shake and shudder and break around the youth until a giant dark wolf stood in his place. This time when Thor moved to mount the crouching wolf, he approached with no trepidation or fear. Despite his friends mischief, Thor trusted him.

This time when Ikol trotted from the cave, Thor found it easier to move with his mount, matching  the rhythm of Ikol’s body as he moved into a long loping gait.

The fact that they had already become so used to matching each other’s rhythms was a thought that was not lost to him.


End file.
